Gatchaman R2: Little Earthquakes
by Savage Redhead
Summary: It's been a year since the mysterious reappearance of the Science Ninja, and with the threat of Galactor gone, they're moving on with their lives. But out in the desert, a malevolent force awakens and plots revenge.
1. Default Chapter

LITTLE EARTHQUAKES

_Emby Quinn (embyquinn@subreality.com)_

_**Author's Note:** This story is a sequel to my post-Gatchaman F fanfiction "Past the Mission". The bird people,the mutant, the alien and the assorted ISO people do not belong to me. Only the redhead is mine.--eq_

Chapter 1: Left Here Silent  


  
_Yellow bird flying gets shot in the wing  
Good year for hunters and Christmas parties  
and I hate elevator music  
The way we fight  
The way I'm left here silent  
_  


* * *

  
  
It was patient.  
  
It could wait.  
  
The time it had spent dormant in the midst of a barren Southwestern wasteland--almost an entire orbit of the planet around its star, by its own reckoning--was but a moment in the long span of its existence. It had time. It needed no sustenance, no nurturing, no particular environment for its survival. It had survived the cold hard vacuum of space, survived the searing heat of re-entry, survived the shuddering fall to Earth that had scattered the remnants of its former body across the arid landscape. It could not die. It could not be killed. It needed a physical form in order to set its plans in motion, and often in the past it had used agents--avatars, puppets, to do its bidding.  
  
No more. Too many times the chosen weapon had turned on it, spoiling its plans just as they came to fruition. This time, it would act more directly.   
  
It needed a physical body to inhabit, and in the past that body had always been mechanical in nature. It was but a shadow of its former self now, and did not have the power to construct itself a new body.  
  
So it would simply have to requisition one.  
  
The problem was the fact that its range was, at present, severely limited. Outside of a host, it could survive for only a very brief period of time. It needed a focus for its essence; otherwise it would disperse like morning fog, scattering into fragments, losing cohesion and eventually fading into nothingness. It could not leave the burned and twisted cluster of ruined metal that was all that was left of the satellite, and it could not access the raw materials around it to build itself a new, mobile body.   
  
It was trapped.  
  
But it was patient.  
  
It could wait.  
  


* * *

  


"Defeating Z was never your only priority. There is still much you must do."  
  
_Hakase...?  
_  
"You are immortal, like the Phoenix."  
  
_Hakase, where are you? I can't see you...  
_  
"Don't let him catch you unawares. You have to be ready. He wants you to be complacent, to believe that it's over. It isn't over. There's still work to be done for Gatchaman."  
  
_What are you talking about? What's..._  
  
"...wrong? Ken, wake up!"  
  
_"Yamero!!" _Ken Washio jerked roughly away from the hand that had been shaking his shoulder. "Dammit, leave me alone!" he snarled again, swiping his dark hair out of his face as he sat up, blinking hard against the morning sunlight.  
  
"Excuse the hell out of me." Joe Asakura stood up and folded his arms, scowling down at him. "I should have just let you sleep through your own wedding day, I suppose."  
  
"What? Wedding--_chikushou!_" Ken rolled out of bed and hit the floor running for the bathroom. "What time is it?"  
  
"Relax," Joe called after him. "It's only eight o'clock. You've got a good five hours in which to panic before the moment of truth."  
  
Ken barely heard him. He stripped out of his shorts and jumped into the shower before the water had even gotten properly hot. He was getting married today. His heart gave a leap of pure joy. After all this time, Jun was going to be his wife. They were going to have the life together they'd always wanted, the life they'd fought so hard to win for so long. The life he somehow still feared would be ripped from them before it had properly begun.  
  
No wonder he was having nightmares.  
  
He emerged from the bath with a towel wrapped around his narrow waist, his hair still wet and dripping down his back. Joe was sitting at the small table in one corner of his room, munching idly on a croissant. He gestured to the large plate on the table and swallowed. "Get 'em while they're hot."  
  
"You call this breakfast?" Ken grinned as he took one of the pastries and sat on the edge of his bed.  
  
"You'll survive without your morning miso this once. Eat up; you're going to need your strength."  
  
Ken laughed. "Like you'd know. How many times have _you_ gotten married?"  
  
Joe snorted and took a long drink of his coffee. He was used to Ken needling him about "doing the right thing" and marrying Miyae, but he didn't like being pushed into anything. Now that the goddamned war was finally over, there was time. All the time in the world, and if Miya wasn't in any hurry to make a run for the altar then neither was he.  
  
They ate for a while in companionable silence. Ken was glad of the quiet. He was usually one for words, but with Joe there often wasn't need for them. They had been together most of their lives, and they understood each other better than most men who'd been born brothers. It was that way with all the others, too--Jun, Jinpei and Ryu--a sense of belonging so strong that it transcended blood or any other ties, a sense of being together that had only grown stronger since the destruction of Z up in space.  
  
_"Don't let him catch you unawares. You have to be ready. He wants you to be complacent, to believe that it's over. It isn't over. There's still work to be done for Gatchaman."_  
  
Ken shuddered.  
  
Joe's quick eyes caught it. "What's the matter?"  
  
Ken shook his head. "No. Nothing."  
  
"You're not having second thoughts, are you?"  
  
"Of course not. Just...pre-wedding jitters, I suppose."  
  
Joe didn't look like he believed it. "Whatever."  
  
"Don't 'whatever' me. You know I hate that."  
  
"You're a lousy liar, my friend. But if you don't want to tell me what's bothering you, that's your business, not mine." Joe swung his feet off the edge of the table and stood up, walking over to the window to peer out through the curtain.  
  
Ken sighed. He wanted to share his misgivings, his bad dreams, with Joe. The big Sicilian was his brother in all but blood, his other half, closer to him than anyone else except Jun, closer even than his own flesh-and-blood sister. But speaking it out loud, actually giving voice to the silent unrest within him, would make it all too real somehow. Irrational as it seemed, he somehow felt that by talking about it, he might make it come to pass.  
  
_It isn't over. There's still work to be done for Gatchaman.  
  
No. Not for me. Not for them. Let someone else deal with it. We've done our part._  
  
"It's going to be a beautiful day," Joe murmured, looking up at the clear blue sky.  
  
Ken got up and walked over behind Joe, putting a hand on the man's shoulder. "It certainly is. I'm glad we're here to see it."  
  
Joe looked back at him with a sad smile. "I just wish..."  
  
"Mm?"  
  
"I wish Nambu could have been here too."  
  
Ken's stomach turned to lead. He swallowed hard and tried to smile back. "I'm sure he is. He'll always be in our hearts."  
  
"Yeah." Joe patted Ken's hand and headed past him for the door. "The tux fitter's coming at eleven. That gives you roughly two hours to get dried off and dressed."  
  
"Joe?"  
  
The Sicilian paused, the door open, and looked back at him.  
  
Ken smiled, a real smile this time. "Thank you."  
  
"For what?"  
  
"For being my best man. For being my best friend. For being here. For...for always being here."  
  
Joe chuckled softly. "It's where I belong."  
  
Ken sighed as the door shut behind him. He was more grateful than he could have said, not just for the reasons he'd given, but because Joe wasn't pushing him to talk about what was bothering him. What could possibly be bothering him on his wedding day?  
  
_Don't let him catch you unawares. You have to be ready. He wants you to be complacent, to believe that it's over. It isn't over. There's still work to be done for Gatchaman._  
  
Ken resolutely shut away the memory of the dream (latest in a series, collect them all) and went to dry his hair.  
  


* * *

  
"Morning." Joe caught Miya in passing in the hallway and planted a quick light kiss on her mouth. "How's the bride-to-be?"  
  
"Calm, cool, collected and about to drive me insane." The redhead shook her feathered bangs out of her wide blue eyes. "How's my little brother?"  
  
"Complaining about not having a proper breakfast and brooding about something he doesn't want to tell me."  
  
"In other words..."  
  
Joe smirked and finished the sentence for her. "They're acting perfectly normal."  
  
"That's what scares me." Miya glanced back over her shoulder. "I've got to make sure the caterers are on their way. And that Jinpei doesn't kill them for invading his kitchen."  
  
"You're taking your maid of honor duties pretty seriously."  
  
"Of course. It's not every day my best friend and my only brother get married."  
  
"I thought I was your best friend," Joe protested.  
  
"You're my everything."  
  
"Mm. Good answer." Joe caught her around the waist and gave her another kiss, this one neither quick nor light. For just a moment Miya pressed against him, kissing him back with a fervor equal to his, then she seemed to come to her senses and reluctantly disengaged. "Later," she promised.  
  
"Che. That's what they all say."  
  
She squinched her nose at him and hurried off. Joe watched her go down the stairs with a half smile and a sigh that was only mildly frustrated. He was amazingly happy for Ken and Jun--it was about damned time, after all--but all these preparations were cutting into his personal time more than he'd anticipated, particularly in the last few days.   
  
_Oh, well. They're only going to get married once._  
.  


* * *

  
"Hold still!"  
  
Ryu grimaced, but he did his best not to fidget as Kamo's thick but nimble fingers adjusted his bowtie. "I've never worn one of these things before," he muttered. "I hate dressing up."  
  
"It's for a good reason this time, at least." Saburo Kamo gave Ryu's shoulder a pat. He knew that the last time the team had worn anything like formal wear was at Nambu's funeral, and that was an incident he was sure they longed to forget. It had been almost a year since the President's murder, and Kamo knew that Ryu and his erstwhile teammates still missed their mentor fiercely. Kamo himself had taken Nambu's position when he'd become President, but he had never tried to take the Doctor's place in the hearts of the team. And he still thought of them as a team, even now, although it had been many months since they'd been officially retired.  
  
"How do I look?" Ryu studied himself critically in the wall-mounted mirror. "I feel like an overstuffed penguin."  
  
"You're fine. Very handsome." Kamo ran his hand through his own thinning gray hair. "Are you ready to go downstairs?"  
  
"As I'll ever be, I guess."  
  
"Smile, Ryu! This is a happy occasion, remember?"  
  
Ryu did manage a grin. "Yeah, I know. It's been too long in coming, too. At least now Ken and Jun will have the life they've always wanted."  
  
"The same goes for all of you." Kamo adjusted the lapels of his jacket and opened the door. "And as you said, it's been too long coming."  
  


* * *

  
The decision to have a Western-style wedding hadn't been a difficult one to make. Ken wasn't particularly adherent to any religion, and Jun had been raised in a Catholic orphanage. Ken had left the decision to her, and with true dedication the intended bride had gone all-out with the preparations.  
  
The Cygnus Lodge had a small chapel, and on this sunny day in early June it was festooned in a palette of soft whites. All manner of flowers--gardenias, daylilies, carnations, and yes, even roses--were scattered in lavish arrangements, filling the room with delicate scents.   
  
The minister was a grandson of Dr. Cho-Yon Sun, the staff physician who had watched over the Science Ninja for years before her retirement near the end of the war. The guests were mostly ISO and G-Mountain employees, many of them known to Ken only by their surnames and titles. Standing at the altar in his crisp white tuxedo, Ken had a moment to reflect on the fact that very few of the people here were more than acquaintances. In all the years they'd been together, no one on the team had felt the need to form many close friendships outside the group...and the few times they had seemed to invariably lead to disaster.  
  
_With a couple of exceptions,_ he reminded himself. He heard the door leading to the hall open, and he looked back to see Miya appear, looking astonishingly feminine (if slightly uneasy) in her pale green bridesmaid's dress.  
  
Ken nodded once to her and glanced at Joe. The Sicilian wore black, of course, and at the moment his blue-grey eyes were riveted on the woman coming up the aisle.  
  
_Next time we do this, she'll be the one wearing white,_ Ken thought, and as if Joe had heard him, the predatory eyes flickered at him. Ken winked to cover his own nervousness, and Joe snorted softly and looked away.  
  
The organ music changed, and the guests stood and looked toward the rear of the chapel in anticipation. Ken's mouth felt suddenly dry, and he watched the open doorway. For a long, unsettling moment, the space beyond the door remained empty. Ken wondered if he'd forgotten how to breathe.  
  
Then Jun appeared, on Kamo's arm, and Ken felt his heart start beating again. Pounding, really. Jun was looking down, her face obscured by a short transparent veil. The bodice of her dress was close-fitting and low-cut, but somehow it didn't look in the least inappropriate, only serving to enhance her maidenly beauty. The sleeves were puffed at the shoulders and close-fitting from the elbows down, covered with a delicate network of lace. The skirt was full and ruffled and whispered softly with every step she took.   
  
At the head of the aisle she handed off her bouquet to Miya without a word and turned to face Ken, her eyes still cast down. Ken, for his part, couldn't take his eyes off her.  
  
Ken heard the minister's voice, but the words didn't seem to be registering. Chief Kamo confirmed that he was here to present the bride to her intended husband. Tenderly the older man lifted the veil from Jun's face, gave her a fatherly kiss on her high white brow, and moved off to sit between Ryu and Jinpei on the front pew.  
  
When the time came for the vows, Ken recited them in a strong, steady voice that betrayed none of his inexplicable nervousness. When he finished, his sister gave him a quick thumbs-up over Jun's shoulder.  
  
Finally, Jun raised her eyes to meet his as she took her turn at reciting the vows. Her eyes shone under the soft lights, and her voice was a bare whisper.  
  
Joe put the ring into Ken's nerveless fingers, and he almost dropped it, but he managed to keep hold of the small gold band and slipped it onto Jun's ring finger. Her hands were steady when she presented him with his own wedding ring, but the small slim fingers were cold as ice.  
  
"...now pronounce you man and wife." Matthew Sun smiled. "You may kiss the bride."  
  
_She's not 'the bride', not anymore, she's my wife,_ Ken thought with a certain amount of proprietary pride. He took Jun in his arms and gave her a kiss that threatened to put the Sicilian behind him to shame in terms of expressed passion.  
  


* * *

  
The reception was held in the lodge's banquet hall, and proceeded with an appropriate lack of civil decorum. After several glasses of champagne, Ken felt bold enough to remove Jun's garter. She squealed and swatted at him as he ducked underneath her voluminous skirts, cheered on by Joe and most of the rest of the male guests. He was greeted with applause when he emerged with the garter clenched firmly in his teeth.  
  
With his long-accustomed grace he stood, pivoted, and fired off the garter at the man in black at the head of the crowd. Joe caught it reflexively and scowled theatrically as Ken tipped him a saucy wink.  
  
Then it was time for Jun to toss the bouquet. Miya had to be urged to join the crowd of giggling females, and she resolutely stood at the back, arms folded, with her back turned. This, of course, availed her naught. Without so much as glancing over her shoulder, Jun tossed the bunch of white roses over her head, and it soared well above the frantically waving hands of the crowd to bonk Jun's honor attendant soundly on top of the head. Startled, Miya unfolded her arms just in time to catch the bouquet.  
  
She looked from the flowers she was holding to Joe, who was walking up spinning the garter on one finger. "It's an insidious plot," she murmured to him, half-smiling.  
  
"Uh-huh. Should I start trembling now?"  
  
"They'd probably be disappointed if we didn't at least _pretend_ to tremble."  
  
"Well, damn. I never took Trembling 101, so they'll have to suffer." Joe looped an arm around her waist and kissed her, to the enthusiastic applause of the crowd.  
  
"Ahem?" Jun waited patiently until she had their attention. "I'm going to need a little help getting out of this thing and into my traveling clothes..."  
  
"That's what your husband's for," Miya suggested, not letting go of Joe.  
  
Jun took hold of Miya's arm and tugged her away. "Come on, you. It won't take that long."  
  
Joe watched the two women go upstairs. He realized he was still holding the baby-blue garter, and absently he pocketed it.  
  
"Joe?"  
  
He turned. "Ken."  
  
The dark-haired man jerked his head in the direction of a small anteroom. Wondering, but not asking questions, Joe followed his foster brother away from the noise and chatter of the small festive crowd.  
  
Ken shut the door behind them. "Joe, I really want you to know how grateful I am for your being here."  
  
"Where else am I supposed to be?" Joe leaned against the wall. "If you're going to ask me to run off with you now, I'd say you left it a little late."  
  
Ken shook his head, dismissing the attempt at humor. "I wanted to give you something. A gift, I suppose."  
  
"And it's not even my birthday."  
  
Ken reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and took something out. Joe looked at the object in his hand, and his eyes went wide.  
  
"This...this is..."  
  
"Hakase's pendant." Ken took Joe's hand and put the pendant in his palm, closing his fingers over it. The pendant was warm to the touch. "I want you to have it."  
  
"Ken...I can't take this away from you..."  
  
Ken smiled sadly. "You said only this morning how much you missed him. This is all we have left of him now...and he didn't just leave it to me. He left this to all of us."  
  
After a moment, Joe nodded. "Thank you, Ken...I know how hard it is for you to give this up."  
  
"Not as hard as it would have been to lose all of you." Ken reached out and hugged Joe hard. "I'm not going to let that happen. Not ever."  
  
Joe dropped an arm across Ken's narrow shoulders. "Not likely to happen now unless we all get in the same train wreck."  
  
"Don't joke about it." Ken sounded close to tears. "We--I--lost you once, Joe. And we almost lost all our lives when we took Z down."  
  
"_Almost_ only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and tactical nukes." Joe clapped Ken on the back. "Don't go all weepy on me now--there's a lady upstairs who's waiting for you to carry her off into the sunset. You might know her--she's your wife. You wouldn't want her to get the wrong idea."  
  
Ken took a deep breath and straightened up. "You're right, Joe. This isn't a day for tears." He managed a shadow of his usually sunny smile. "I guess I need to go get changed myself."  
  
"You do that."  
  
After Ken had gone, Joe sat down in a chair by the door and looked long and hard at the pendant in his hand. He wasn't really sure it was a pendant, though that was what they'd always called it. It didn't _look_ much like a piece of jewelry. It was shaped roughly like the face of their activators, with a similar elaborate bird motif etched into the smooth metal surface. It seemed to be more like some kind of...  
  
Device?  
  
He held it up to one ear, listening intently, focusing his hearing, still superhumanly acute, trying to detect some hum of circuitry or whir of machinery inside the pendant's housing. There was nothing. Nothing he could hear, at least.  
  
He sighed and slipped the pendant into the breast pocket of his jacket. Then he got up to rejoin the party outside.  
  


* * *

  


Jun came back downstairs wearing a flower-print sundress and a white lace jacket. A white straw sunhat was perched atop her head. She descended the last few steps at a trot and took Ken's offered hand. He had traded his white tux for a white cotton shirt and gray slacks. "All ready, Mrs. Washio?"  
  
Jun giggled--she couldn't help it. Having a real, legal last name was enough of a thrill, but having _Ken's_ last name...that was something she had dreamed of since she was six years old. "Ready when you are, Mr. Washio."  
  
Hand in hand they ducked out the side door, to be greeted by a flurry of rice, streamers, confetti and--of all things--soap bubbles. _I'm glad I'm not the one who has to clean up this mess,_ Jun thought giddily as they ran through the colorful deluge.  
  
Ken led her to his motorcycle and set her on the back, clambered on himself and roared off, leaving the shouts of the well-wishers behind them. Jun only had ears for a handful of the voices--Joe, Ryu, Jinpei and Miyae. "We're not riding this thing all the way to Halai?" she yelled over the roar of the Harley's engine.  
  
He glanced over his shoulder at her, grinning, but didn't answer. He was heading for the airstrip that had been built after they'd purchased the lodge. The sign--_AQUILA CHARTER_--was still gleaming with fresh paint as they rode past it.  
  
As they pulled around the hangar, Jun let out a laugh of surprise and delight. There, on the airstrip, waited a compact Cessna much like the one Ken's first vehicle had resembled in civilian mode. It was painted a glossy, high-cloud white, decorated with satiny streamers. The words _Just Married_ were carefully painted on the left side, just behind the propeller.  
  
When Ken stopped the bike, Jun threw her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. "How did you--I had no idea--"  
  
"I'm the white shadow that moves unseen, remember?" Ken tapped her nose playfully. "I'm sneaky that way."  
  


* * *

  
Miya shut the door behind the last of the departing guests with a weary sigh. Ryu and Kamo were upstairs, no doubt already asleep after the day's festivities. She glanced at the clock above the foyer--almost eleven. Ken and Jun should be safely on their honeymoon by now. She briefly considered calling them, then decided against it...even though it might have been amusing to catch Ken in an awkward moment as he so often had with her and Joe.  
  
She wandered down the hallway, stopping briefly as she heard clattering and grumbling from the kitchen area. "Jinpei, leave it for tonight," she called. "I'll help you set the kitchen back in order tomorrow." The racket continued unabated; she shrugged and turned towards the stairs.   
  
She was so worn out that she didn't even notice Joe until he dropped an arm over her shoulders. He was still wearing his formal wear, but somewhere along the line he'd discarded his bow tie, and the frilled shirt was open at the neck. "Ready to call it a day, Red?"  
  
She looked up at him and smiled weakly. "It's a day. Want to come help me get out of this thing?"  
  
"I thought you'd never ask." Joe steered her up the stairs to the room she'd taken at the end of the hall. As Jun's honor attendant and Ken's best man, respectively, Miya and Joe had barely had time to nod at each other since their arrival a week ago. Miya felt the last of the tension drain from her as the door closed behind her. "Thank God that's over." She reached up and moved her hair aside so Joe could get to the zipper down the back of her dress. "I hope I never have to go through that again."  
  
"Does that mean you don't want to get married?" Joe pulled the tab of the zipper down to Miya's waist.  
  
"I didn't realize you were offering." Miya shrugged out of the long, close-fitting sleeves. "Anyway, what difference does it make? We've got a good thing going here, why spoil it with a bunch of official garbage?"  
  
"Hnm." Joe could have called to mind a reasonably good counter-argument, but the sight of Miya's bare white back was a severe hindrance to logical thought. He took a step forward and put his large hands on her shoulders, kissing at the back of her neck.  
  
She shivered a bit. "Mm...keep that up and you might not get out of here before morning."  
  
"I wasn't intending to attempt an escape." Joe tugged the dress off completely and turned her around, pulling her close. "It's been six days, seventeen hours, forty-seven minutes and an odd number of seconds since we've had any chance to be alone together. We're going to be here for at least another week; I intend to make up for lost time, starting right now."  
  
"Mm...maybe I'm not as tired as I thought," Miya asserted as Joe pulled her down onto the bed, her hands already working his jacket off his broad shoulders.  
  


* * *

  
_The first thing to hit him was the smell. Ozone, gunpowder, sulfur, smoke, and permeating it all, the unmistakable sweet-rot scent of decaying flesh.  
  
He stumbled through the red-glowing dark, unable to recognize the scattered bodies around him as individuals, only as the charred and dismembered remains of what had once been human beings. Fires guttered in the ruins around him, the only movement he could see.  
  
He paused amidst the ruins, looking around desperately for some sign of life. Surely someone else must have survived? "Is anyone here?" he called out, cupping his hands to his mouth. "Can anybody hear me?!"  
  
Then he heard it: the laughter.  
  
It chilled his blood. He knew that voice, knew and hated it. The cold dread and horror in his stomach flared up into unaccountable rage at the sound of Z's amusement. "Where are you, you bastard?! What are you doing here? We killed you! Damn you, why won't you stay dead?"  
  
"The same could be said for you, Gatchaman. How many times have I, or my avatars, attempted to destroy you and your team? Yet still you returned to stand in the way of my plans. But not this time. This time you're too late. All that you loved, all that you cherished, all that you sought to protect is gone. By turning your back on your obligations, by growing complacent in your dreams of peace, by refusing to remain vigilant, you allowed me to do this."  
  
He saw them, then--four figures, lying on the ground before him, in their tattered BirdStyles. None moving. All dead. All except for him. He knew then that not only this place, but the whole world had been laid waste.  
  
He was alone on a dead planet, the last of his kind. He had turned his back on his sworn duty, and the entire human race had paid the price for his folly.  
  
The five of them had sworn to protect the Earth. They had failed. He had failed. Everyone was dead. Everything they'd fought for, everyone he loved, was gone.  
  
_"NO--!!!!!"  
  
Joe sat bolt upright in bed, breathing hard, shaking, covered with chilling sweat and wide-awake in the darkness. His eyes darted frantically around and saw only the shadowed contours of their guest room at the Lodge, with soft moonlight streaming through the curtained window. Beside him, Miya still slept, exhausted and unaware. Like her brother, Miya could sleep through an earthquake. She hadn't heard Joe's waking scream or sensed his sudden movement.  
  
He looked down at her and brushed a trembling hand over her soft red hair. She was here, he was with her, Ken and Jun were on their honeymoon, Jinpei and Ryu were asleep down the hall, everyone he loved was safe. _Just a nightmare,_ he told himself. And yet he couldn't get that last image out of his mind: standing in the guttering ruins of a burned-out city, the bodies of his murdered teammates at his feet--  
  
Wait.  
  
The image was as clear as if it still hung before his vision, but there was something wrong with it. Joe shut his eyes tight and forced himself to remember every detail. Jun, lying on her back, her yo-yo wrapped around her neck, dead eyes open to the smoke-filled sky. Jinpei, skewered on a sharp spike of metal. Ryu, crushed beneath a heavy section of stone wall. And Ken--  
  
No. Not Ken. _Himself._ His body, his Condor BirdStyle, his face on the severed head that lay several feet from his shoulders.  
  
That didn't make any sense. Where was Ken? Why had he seen his own death, and not Gatchaman's?  
  
Wait--Z had called _him_ "Gatchaman"--  
  
Had he, somehow, been having _Ken's_ nightmare?  
  
Ridiculous. That was crazy.  
  
He swung his feet to the floor and bent over, running his hands through his tousled hair. A glimmer on the floor caught his eye, and he bent to see what was causing it. His fingers closed over smooth-patterned metal, and he picked it up. Nambu's pendant. Although it had been on the bare wooden floor, it still felt warm to the touch.  
  
And it was glowing. Very faintly, but glowing nonetheless.  
  
_Must be a trick of the moonlight,_ Joe mused, and put the pendant on the nightstand. With a grunt he laid back down, turned on his side and gathered Miya into his arms. In her sleep she murmured softly and nuzzled up against his bare chest, which made him feel immeasurably better. He rested his cheek on top of her head, inhaling the sweet, slightly spicy scent of it, and closed his eyes.  
  
But he didn't sleep again that night. He lay awake till dawn.  
  
  


  
* * *   
  
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	2. Never Afraid To Burn

LITTLE EARTHQUAKES

_Emby Quinn (embyquinn@subreality.com)_

  
Chapter 2: Never Afraid to Burn  


  
_We danced in graveyards with vampires till dawn  
We laughed in the faces of kings never afraid to burn  
and I hate disintegration  
Watching us wither  
Black winged roses can't safely change their color  
_  
  


* * *

  
It was just past midnight, and the desert air was bitterly cold. The sands were stark and empty, the color of bone in the moonlight, and the stars glinted like chips of ice in the blue-black sky.  
  
A battered pickup truck rattled off the seldom-used road and stopped alongside it. The driver cut the engine but left the headlights on. The door creaked open and a man stepped out. He was young, a bit seedy-looking but almost handsome, dressed in jeans and a faded T-shirt with BORN TO RAISE HELL stenciled on the front.  
  
He lit a cigarette and walked around to the back of the truck. He lowered the tailgate and reached across it to grab hold of what he'd come to drop off in the desert.  
  
The body of the woman was dead weight--not surprising, since the woman was, in fact, quite dead. The rope was still wound around her neck, and her eyes stared up at the black sky, bulging out of their sockets. She looked almost comically surprised, as though astonished at her own fate.  
  
Whistling merrily, the killer heaved the body over his shoulder in a fireman's carry and walked away from the truck, looking for a good place to dump the body out of sight of the road. Since the interstate connector had been built several miles to the south, almost no one used this particular stretch of road. It would most likely be months, even years, before anyone found the body. By then the desert animals and the elements would have had their way with the remains.   
  
He was an old hand at this; five years now, sixteen women--mostly prostitutes and runaways--and still the police had no clue that a serial killer was living in the area. Not that he committed any of the murders in his own town; he always went across the border, to Fianis or Leplace, picked up a random girl from the red-light strip, and did his business with her. Then he brought them to the desert to drop them off. So far, none of them had been found.  
  
He mused over his peculiar situation as he wandered around a mesa, trying to find a spot that looked right. He wasn't an idiot. He knew his luck would run out eventually. He was hooked on killing the way junkies got hooked on their drug of choice, and he was starting to get careless. Sloppy. This one had fought like hell--the scratches were fresh on his face--and she'd almost gotten away from him in the parking lot. Somebody could have heard her screaming before he shut her up for good. If so, he could be in trouble. It might be time to think about moving again.  
  
He crested the gentle slope of a dune and stopped. Black fragments littered the sand in front of him--parts of an abandoned car, maybe. It looked like bits of metal and such. A junk heap, here in the middle of nowhere.  
  
He grinned.  
  
Perfect.  
  
He strolled down the dune and slung the body off his shoulders. He stretched her out, her head pointed towards the west, so she could watch the sun rise. He folded her white hands neatly over her breasts and made sure her legs were primly together. Finally he pressed a kiss to her cold bluish forehead.  
  
"Thank you," he whispered, and straightened up. He was still a bit cross with her for scratching him and screaming, but in the end he'd gotten what he wanted from her, and it would have been impolite not to show his gratitude.  
  
As he was walking off, his foot snagged on something in the sand, and he sprawled forward on his face. With a muttered curse he sat up and looked around. He'd stumbled on one of the pieces of junk--funny, he could have sworn it hadn't been in his path a second ago.  
  
It was an odd shape, about the size of a bowling ball, roughly spherical in shape, and it seemed to be..._humming_.  
  
He reached out to pick it up. The metal was smooth under his hand, vibrating softly.  
  
As he grasped the object, a shock of sudden pain, like an electric jolt, ran up his arm. He tried to pull his hand away, but it wouldn't let go of the thing. He couldn't open his fingers or move his arm at all. White fire invaded his mind, and he screamed. He knew a single instant of intense panic, then the fire consumed his mind and he knew nothing at all.  
  


* * *

  


"Good morning."  
  
Ken opened his eyes, blinking against the sunlight which streamed in through the open window. He yawned and stretched languidly, then smiled at the woman perched on the edge of the bed. "Good morning yourself, Mrs. Washio."  
  
Jun returned his smile--she was positively glowing. "Did you sleep well?"  
  
"Yes." _For the first time in weeks,_ he added silently. He sat up, running a hand through his hair. "What time is it?"  
  
"Time for breakfast." Jun reached behind her and produced a bed tray, placing it across Ken's lap. The tantalizing scents of fresh _shiramiso_ and grilled fish made Ken's stomach growl in anticipation. The various portions were presented in blue-and-white china bowls arranged in a seemingly careless yet cheerily harmonious mixture of patterns and shapes.   
  
Ken picked up the polished black chopsticks and tucked in with a will. He was halfway through the _miso_ and rice when he paused and looked at her. "You didn't..."  
  
Jun beamed. "I did."  
  
"But...?"  
  
She giggled. "I've spent the month or so practicing. I figured the least I could do was make a decent honeymoon breaktast for my husband. Jinpei was surprisingly patient with me, and over the past few days Miya helped me learn how to get the _miso_ just right."  
  
"Miyae? But she can't cook either."  
  
"She can't cook to Joe's liking, but she does all right with _miso_ and _gohan_. Night before last we even made sushi rolls together." Jun sat up proudly and stole a morsel of the grilled salmon off his plate. "Mind you, I'm never going to be Martha Stewart, but I've got breakfast sussed."  
  
Ken set his chopsticks down and regarded his wife with new eyes. Jun hated cooking, she'd never been good at it, and it had always been a bit of a sore spot with her. "And you did all this for me...?"  
  
"Well..." Jun looked down, her cheeks coloring a bit. But she was still smiling. "You're worth it, Ken."  
  
He took her small white hands in his and pulled her forward for a kiss. "It's delicious," he told her, and meant it. "Thank you."  
  
"You're welcome." She'd brought the grilled salmon in a cold-pack sealed container, secreted away in her luggage and warmed in the suite's microwave, and the _shiramiso_ was from a Kikkoman powdered mix, but Jun didn't see the need to tell Ken those details. After all, a wife had to keep some things secret from her husband, for his own good. And anyway, she had made the rice and _tamago_ herself.  
  
"Now finish eating," she said, in such a prim little no-nonsense voice that Ken laughed and picked up his chopsticks with a "yes-ma'am" smile. "Remember, we're going diving at the reefs today, and we're supposed to pick up the scuba gear when the shop opens at ten."  
  


* * *

  


The sun felt good on his face. Joe lay on his back in the meadow, listening to the soft buzz of dragonflies and bumblebees, inhaling the sun-warmed scent of the grass and wildflowers, managing successfully, for the moment at least, to think about nothing at all.  
  
He heard a soft footfall behind him, but he didn't open his eyes, not even when the new arrival settled down beside him in the grass. He knew who had come looking for him--it had to be one of the only two people around for miles, and it certainly wasn't Jinpei beside him right now. He wasn't ignoring her--not exactly--but he sensed why she'd come looking for him, and although she would do her best not to pry, sooner or later he'd end up telling her what he'd spent all morning and half the afternoon not trying to think about.  
  
After all, she was Ken's sister, and fact-finding and problem-solving was encoded in the Washios' DNA. Along with talking too much and carrying the weight of the world around on their respective shoulders.  
  
With an inaudible sigh, he finally opened his eyes. Miya wasn't even looking in his direction; she sat beside him with her arms wrapped loosely around her knees, looking downhill to the wide, placid blue lake near the lodge. In winter, the lake invariably froze over and was frequented by visitors who enjoyed ice skating; now, in early summer, its softly rippling surface was home only to the graceful white waterbirds that gave the Cygnus Lodge its name.  
  
"Hi," Joe rumbled, sitting up.  
  
Her blue eyes cut over to him and she smiled a bit. "Hi yourself, Condor."  
  
He moved closer to her and dropped his arm around her shoulders. "It's a beautiful day, isn't it?"  
  
"Mm. It might rain tonight, though."  
  
"If it does, it does. Not much we can do about it."  
  
"Aa."  
  
_This is ridiculous,_ Joe thought in a flash of heated frustration. _We're talking about the damned weather like a couple of old men._ "So...?"  
  
"Mm? Oh." She looked directly at him, meeting his eyes. "Jun just called. She and Ken went snorkeling today--they got a nice collection of seashells to bring home."  
  
"How are they getting along?"  
  
"Swimmingly."  
  
Joe snorted. "Nice choice of words."  
  
"Jun asked about you. I told her you were fine. When she asked where you were, I told her you'd gone into town to pick up a few things."  
  
He groaned. "You shouldn't have lied to her."  
  
"If I'd told her you were out here brooding, it might have worried her. It doesn't matter, since she knew I was lying anyway." She shrugged. "But she didn't press the matter. She just wants you to call her when you get back in."  
  
Joe shook his head and leaned forward to rest his forehead against Miya's. "I don't want this to end," he said.  
  
"Well, it _is_ nice up here, but Ken and Jun will be back at the end of the week, and you've got that big race in Independence next month--"  
  
"That's not what I mean and you know it." He drew back and looked at her.  
  
"So tell me what you're talking about. I can't help if I don't know what's wrong."  
  
"There's nothing to be done. It's just..." He looked away, down to the lake, watching the swans go about whatever business swans were usually about on a sunny day in June.  
  
Miya rested her head on his shoulder. "Joe. Talk to me."  
  
_I'm trying._ The silence spun out around them--not the comfortable silence they usually shared, but a bleak and empty void that no amount of closeness could fill. Finally he put his cheek on top of her head, still watching the lake. "I had a dream last night."  
  
"Bad one?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
She put her hand on his chest. "The same one?"  
  
"No. This one was new and different." He shut his eyes and forced the next words out. "I dreamed Z was back and he...he killed everyone."  
  
"Ohhh."  
  
The knowing tone of her voice made him open his eyes, sit up and look down at her. "What?"  
  
Miya gave a brief chuckle and looked up at him. "It sounds like everyone's favorite gunner is suffering from a bad case of 'it's too good to be true' syndrome."  
  
"What the hell are you talking about?"  
  
She kissed his shoulder. "Don't you see? Ken and Jun are happily married and off on their honeymoon; Jinpei's getting ready to go to college in the fall; Ryu has gone home to start that family he's wanted forever; and you're doing what you always loved best, out on the racing circuit. There's no more Galactor, no more Katse, no more Gel Sadra, no more Egobossler, and no more X or Z or any other letter of the alphabet from space to worry about." She straightened up and gave him that direct, uncompromising look of hers. "You've been living on the edge since you were eight years old, Joe. It's not surprising that, now that there's peace, you're having a hard time accepting that it's real--that it's going to last."  
  
"Mm...maybe. You think that's all it is?" What she was saying made sense, perfect sense. And yet...  
  
"Let me tell you something--something I never even told Ken about." Her eyes dropped and she folded her hands in her lap. "For about a month after you guys yanked me off Petal Island, I would wake up in a cold sweat almost every night. I was sure that Katse, or Anastasia, or someone else from Galactor was going to come after me. Not to kill me--to take me back. By the time you and I got together, I stopped having those dreams, but while it was going on, it wasn't exactly a little slice of heaven--and because of those dreams, I spent almost every day looking over my shoulder. I was terrified. That was why I never wanted to go out in public by myself. That was why I was so scared of big crowds of people I didn't know. I never knew whether one of those people were with the Syndicate, and might know me for what I was, and report back to Katse that 'Poppy' wasn't dead after all."  
  
"_Cara..._" Joe put his arms around her and gathered her to his chest. "Why didn't you say anything?"  
  
"What could be done? It was something I had to deal with myself. I _knew_ my fears were irrational, but that didn't make them go away. I had to face them and get over them on my own. And--finally--that's what I did." She kissed his chest, just over his heart. "That's how I know what you're going through now. I'm no psychologist, but it sure sounds like the same deal to me."  
  
Joe found himself nodding. It was true; he _did_ sometimes think things were going too well, that it was too peaceful, that it was, in fact, too good to be true. Was he doomed to spend the rest of his life waiting for the blow to fall? Was he going to be tormenting himself, fully expecting everything and everything he loved to be snatched away from him, for the rest of his life--to the point where he could never let himself relax and enjoy the good things he and the others had fought so hard to preserve?   
  
No, damn it. To hell with that.  
  
"You're right." He tilted her chin up and gave her a soft, lingering kiss. "Old habits--old fears--die hard, I guess. It's really over, isn't it?"  
  
"You're damned right it is. No more war, no more killing, no more living day to day wondering if tomorrow's going to come. We're living happily ever after, Giorgio. Get used to it."   
  
"I think I can do that--if I have the right woman to spend 'happily ever after' with." He lay down again, pulling her with him, and proceeded to demonstrate precisely who he thought that right woman was.  
  
"Joe--if Jinpei comes looking for us--"  
  
"He's going to get one hell of an education. Now hold still so I can do _this_..."  
  
"Jo--Joe--ohhh..."  
  
"Shh."  
  


* * *

  


Sherrie hitched her backpack up as she walked along the side of the road. It was almost dark, and she wasn't looking forward to spending another night sleeping outside--especially since it looked like it was going to rain.   
  
Oh, well--she'd manage. It wasn't like she hadn't done this before. She'd struck out on her own six times in the last four years, and this time she wasn't going to stop till she got to Utoland City. The goth scene there would welcome her in--she had plenty of friends she'd made on the Internet--and she wouldn't have to be bossed around by her drunk mother anymore or yelled at for coming home too late or having the "wrong" kind of friends. It wasn't like she was a child anymore--she was almost fourteen, for Christ's sake.  
  
She heard the rumble of an engine behind her. She stopped, turned around, and flashed her best smile, holding out a thumb. It wasn't exactly the ride of her dreams--a beat-up old Ford pick-up, no less--but it would get her to the next town before full dark.  
  
The truck slowed and parked on the shoulder. She ran to it and yanked open the creaking side door. "Thanks, mister!" she chirped as she tossed her pack inside and climbed in after it. "It's awful hot out there."  
  
The driver--an old man, he looked about fifty or so--nodded once and pulled back out onto the road.   
  
"I'm really glad you stopped," Sherrie said. For some reason, the man's silence made her nervous. "I need to get to Utoland as quick as I can. My grandma's sick. She's in the hospital, and I don't have any money to get there. I know you can't be going that far--" _Not in _this_ old wreck,_ she thought-- "but any ride's a help right now. I really appreciate it."  
  
The old man still said nothing, and she fell silent. God, it stank in here--like sweat and machine oil and a weird coppery-sweet smell she couldn't quite identify. She settled against the torn cushion of the front seat and watched the road ahead. She was still uneasy, but what the hell--you took your chances hitching these days, and she could take care of herself if she had to. She always had. The sound of the engine and the motion of the truck gradually lulled her into a fitful doze.  
  
She didn't see the driver finally turn to look at her. She didn't see the feral, unnaturally broad grin on his sallow face, and she didn't see the hellish red glow where his eyes should have been.  
  


* * *

  


Arashi Shinya was a well-known appraiser on the Ameris East Coast. He was known for his sharp eye, his quick wit, and his uncanny ability to pick out forgeries that would deceive the most learned art and antique experts. He was young, not yet thirty, but his reputation was unquestioned and his opinions highly respected.  
  
For the past few years, Shinya had become associated with a young couple, a brother and sister purportedly from somewhere in Germany. Berke and Valka Castille were seldom, if ever, seen together, but one or the other was usually in the company of the handsome young appraiser. Most often it was the young man, his long blond hair neatly held in a ponytail, who stood at Arashi's right hand while his sister stayed at home, "minding the shop" as he put it. It was gathered that Valka was something of a recluse, extremely shy around strangers and preferring the company of her cat and a good book to that of other people.  
  
No one save Arashi knew that there was a very good reason for Berke and Valka never to be seen together. Yet, in an odd way, they were _always_ together. Berke and Valka were one and the same person.  
  
Arashi never asked questions about Berke's past. He didn't want to know. He didn't care. He knew that Berke had lived his life in fear of others discovering his (her) secret, but Arashi didn't care about that. He had loved Berke from the moment they'd met at a cocktail party, and they had been inseparable now for nearly four years.  
  
Berke always slept deeply, without dreams (or so he said), so when he woke Arashi screaming in a language he didn't understand or recognize it seemed sufficient cause for alarm.  
  
Arashi switched on the light and took hold of Berke's shoulders. He was shaking, vibrating almost, his head tossing back and forth in a constant show of denial. "Berke! Berke, it's only a dream. Wake up!"  
  
"_Dame da yo!_" Japanese now, and Berke's voice was somehow different--higher, more nasal, almost a falsetto. "_Sosai, onegai, urusai yo!_"  
  
"Berke!" Arashi shook his lover. "Berke, it's Arashi, wake up!"  
  
The vivid blue eyes snapped open, filled with terror and darting from side to side as though looking for some oncoming attack. Finally they focused on Arashi's face. "What...what...?" Berke's voice was normal again, a shade or two below tenor. "Arashi...?"  
  
"It's all right, Berke. You're safe. I'm here." Arashi put his arms around Berke, alarmed at how badly he was still shaking. "Everything's all right."  
  
"No." Berke swallowed hard, still tense in Arashi's embrace. "Nothing's all right. Nowhere is safe. He's coming after me. Somehow he knows I'm alive and sooner or later he's going to find me."  
  
"It doesn't matter." Arashi stroked the length of soft blond hair down Berke's back. "If anyone tries to hurt you, I'll protect you."  
  
"You can't...you can't...not from _him_..."  
  
Arashi chuckled darkly. "Oh, yes I can. I've done it before. I'm not _just_ an art appraiser, remember, _koibito?_"  
  
"You don't understand. He's--he's not human. He'll kill you."  
  
"He can try."  
  
Berke sobbed and pressed his face into Arashi's shoulder. "Oh, gods..."  
  


* * *

  
_Another night, another dream. Different this time. Familiar.  
  
Joe was walking down a long, slightly curved corridor. He recognized it as a passageway in the long-lost Crescent Coral base. It was eerily silent; the scientists and security workers who had always been in transit from one place to another were nowhere to be seen. He was alone.  
  
_I'm dreaming,_ he thought, and he knew it was true, but it felt so _real._ He put his hand to one of the walls, and the metal felt cold and smooth under his touch.  
  
He looked at his reflection in a glass door; he was wearing his old civvies, the dark blue shirt with red sleeves emblazoned with a golden-hued "2" and long, snug-fitting faded jeans. He felt for the hidden pocket along his right thigh, and it opened under his touch. He reached in and pulled out his first team weapon--the cable gun.   
  
_This is damned weird._  
  
A few more steps, and he saw a door he remembered all too well. It wasn't marked, but it didn't have to be. It led to the briefing room, where Dr. Nambu had assembled them before so many assignments.  
  
He stopped in front of it, and of its own accord, the door opened. Everything was as he remembered it: the world map on the wall, Nambu's desk, the circular window that looked out on the coral reef that gave the base its name, teeming with life--  
  
A figure in a grey suit stood with his back to the door, watching the colorful variety of deep sea fish dart past the window. The familiarity of the silhouette made Joe's heart wrench. He wanted to run to the man, and at the same time he wanted to turn on his heel and run back into the hallway and never look back. Torn with indecision, he stayed where he was.  
  
The man in the briefing room turned around. "I'm glad you're finally here. I--" Nambu stopped, frowned a bit in puzzlement. "Joe? What the hell are _you_ doing here?"  
  
"Good question." Joe stepped into the room, kicking the door shut behind him out of long habit. "Then again, it's _my_ dream, so I guess I have a right to be in it."  
  
Nambu shook his head. "I was...I was expecting Ken, actually. I've been trying to reach him for months."  
  
"Uh-huh. Right. Have you tried dialing 1-800-CALL-ATT? I hear it's more reliable than MCI."   
  
"Joe. This is serious."  
  
"Please. At least this is better than the last dream I had."  
  
"What? Oh. That was meant to get Ken's attention. A bit unsubtle, perhaps, but I was losing patience with him. He wouldn't listen to reason, so I tried shock tactics. You mean..._you_ had the dream instead? The one where Z had destroyed the Earth?"  
  
Joe scowled. "This is getting creepy. I don't think I like this dream anymore. I want to wake up now." He turned to the door and pushed at it.  
  
It refused to open.  
  
"Joe. Please, listen to me." Nambu's voice was urgent. "I don't understand why I'm talking to you and not Ken, but that's not important now. What's important is that you realize this is more than just a dream. I'm really here, it's me, and I need to warn you about what's going on."  
  
"Shut up." Joe pushed on the door. It wouldn't budge. "The real Kozaburo Nambu is dead. You're just a ghost cobbled up out of my memory. All that's left of you is the pendant Ken gave me after the wedding. You're nothing but smoke."  
  
"That isn't true, and part of you knows it." Footsteps behind him. "So you have the pendant now...? Well, that certainly explains why you're here instead of Ken."  
  
"Shut up." Joe shoved against the door with all his considerable strength. He might as well have been pushing against the side of a mountain. Actually, the mountainside might be giving way by now. "Leave me alone. The war's over, the enemy's dead, and dammit I'm sick of all the drama. I just want my life--"  
  
A hand grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. The next instant, the same hand cracked across his face.  
  
It _hurt._ He felt his cheek throbbing and put his hand up to touch the side of his face where Nambu had slapped him. He looked at the older man, whose dark eyes were blazing with barely controlled rage.  
  
"I expected this behavior from Ken, but not from you, Joe. You've always been the practical one. You've never been one to back down from a fight or turn your back on your duty. And you _still have_ a duty, have no doubt of that."  
  
Joe was still rubbing his aching jaw. "But...this isn't--"  
  
"Real? Of course it is. Not real as you might understand it, but it's certainly not a fantasy."  
  
"But...Crescent Coral's gone. You're gone. How...?"  
  
"I created this environment because it was familiar to us both. As for me being gone--yes, I died, but my consciousness still exists. For how much longer, I have no idea. That's why it's so urgent that you stop and listen to what I have to tell you."  
  
Joe realized he was still holding his cable gun. It was hard and smooth and fit perfectly in his hand, the way no other weapon he'd ever used did. Slowly he returned it to the pocket of his jeans and he leaned back against the hard metal wall of the briefing room. "All right, Hakase," he said. "I'm listening."_  
  


  
* * *   
  
Return to the Fanfiction Archive  
  



	3. Give Me Life

LITTLE EARTHQUAKES

_Emby Quinn (embyquinn@subreality.com)_

Chapter 3: Give Me Life  


  
_Give me life  
Give me pain  
Give me myself again  
_  
  


* * *

  


Andy got off work early for once. He left the Black Hole through the back entrance. The sun was just coming up, and the sky over southern Utoland was lit with fiery shades of red and purplish-gold.  
  
Andy was rather fond of sunrises. He almost never got to see sunsets; most mornings he didn't get home till eight or so, and he would sleep at least ten or twelve hours before getting back up to shower, shave and report for bouncer detail at the bar. Oh, well, at least the pay was good.  
  
He noticed a battered old pickup truck in the parking lot. His own car was the only other vehicle in sight, so naturally Andy took notice of the truck--it wasn't exactly the type of vehicle most Black Hole patrons were likely to use.  
  
Then he saw the pretty girl standing by the truck, bending over what looked like a flat tire. He couldn't see her face very well, but she had the type of body he liked--what the trendsetters liked to call "heroin chic", all long thin limbs and angles.  
  
He shouldered his jacket and strolled over to see what he could do to help. Knight in shining studded leather, and all that. Besides, it had been at least a week since he'd gotten any.  
  
"Morning, miss. Can I help you?"  
  
The girl looked up--actually, she was hardly in the "girl" category from the look of her; she appeared to be at least thirty or so. Andy balked momentarily, but he was too much of a gentleman to turn and walk off. She still had a decent body, and he could always do her with the lights off. The sun wasn't completely up at the moment, and most of her face was in shadow.  
  
"Looks like you could use a hand. You--" He glanced into the cab of the truck and saw an old man sitting there--half lying back on the seat, apparently dead to the world. "You and your, uhm, father?"  
  
The breeze picked up, and it brought the unmistakable stench of decay to his nostrils. He took a good look at the old man in the growing light, and realized he was "dead to the world" in the most religious sense.  
  
"Oh, my God, lady--I think that guy's--"  
  
He froze when the woman grabbed his arm. He looked down and saw her glowing red eyes, and didn't even have time to scream as the white darkness clamped down over his mind and snuffed it out.  
  


* * *

  


Miya woke up to an otherwise empty bed. This, in and of itself, was not particularly unusual, but nevertheless she felt a vague sense of uneasiness. She opened her eyes and sat up, looking around for any sign of her bedmate.  
  
Joe was sitting on the windowsill, staring out at the fields below. He was dressed only in his jeans, and he didn't look around when she moved. Miya slid out of bed and pulled on the button-down shirt he'd discarded the night before. She walked up behind him and leaned against his back. "Morning, lover. Another rough night?"  
  
He didn't say anything at first. Then he heaved a sigh and put a hand over the one she had on his shoulder. "Rougher than you know, _cara_."  
  
"Care to talk about it, or do you want to get breakfast first?"  
  
"I'm not hungry." He shifted and put his arms around her waist, leaning his forehead against her breasts. "If I told you, you wouldn't believe me."  
  
"Try me."  
  
"I'm serious."  
  
"So am I."  
  
"Okay." Without looking up, he held up his hand. In it he was holding an object that looked vaguely familiar. It took Miya a moment to place it.  
  
"That...that's what Ken was holding when you...when you came back."  
  
"Hakase's keepsake. We call it a pendant, but we don't really know what it was supposed to be. Ken gave it to me before he and Jun left on their honeymoon. That's when the dreams started."  
  
"Well, there you are. No wonder--"  
  
"No, Miya. They're not dreams. They're messages."  
  
She blinked. "What do you mean? Dreams are just dreams, Joe. They can seem very real, but they're not--"  
  
"Hakase told me last night. It's not over. Z, or what's left of Z, is back. He's getting stronger. Pretty soon he's going to be a threat again, and we have to find him before it gets that far."  
  
"Joe--stop it." Miya put her hands on his shoulders. "You're not the sort to get carried away by fantasies. You're as practical as I am."  
  
He chuckled. "That's just what Hakase said."  
  
"Nambu is _dead_, Joe. I'm sorry, but he is. He's been dead for a year now. He can't tell you anything. There are no such thing as ghosts or visits from beyond the grave."  
  
"That's what I believed, once." Joe lifted his head and looked up at her. "Do you see this?" He touched his cheek.  
  
Miya stared at the bruise near his jaw. "What the hell did you do to yourself, Joe?"  
  
"Hakase did this. He hit me last night, to prove he was real. The mark was there when I woke up this morning."  
  
She shook her head. "Listen, that's just--you _must_ have hit yourself, or bumped something in your sleep. That's the only--"  
  
"I _told_ you you wouldn't believe me!" Joe shoved her away and got to his feet, stalking halfway across the room. He stopped and turned to face her. His expression was livid, but his eyes pleaded for her to try and understand. "Don't you think I know how crazy this sounds? I didn't believe it either. I didn't _want_ to believe it. But Hakase raised me. He was practically my second father. I'd know him anywhere, spirit or not, from a simple figment of my own twisted imagination. He's real." He held up the pendant. "He's _here_. I can't explain it, I don't know how, but it's the truth."  
  
Miya folded her arms and took a calming breath. "Joe...listen to what you're saying. Even if consciousness can survive physical death--and that's never been proven--how can Nambu's...persona, spirit, whatever--be inside that trinket you're waving around?"  
  
"How did we survive the explosion of that satellite? The freefall to Earth?"  
  
"Oh, not _that_ again. Ken said it was probably the Spartan, and it burned up on re-entry, but the Hinotori protected you until you reached the ground."  
  
"The Spartan didn't _have_ a Firebird mode."  
  
"Well, obviously it did."  
  
"No." Joe shook his head. "Miya, I was a _cyborg._ I was more machine than human, and I couldn't live without the cybers. But here I am, fully human again. _Whole_ again. Your Spartan theory can't explain that."  
  
Miya stared at him. "So what are you saying? That _you're_ a ghost?"  
  
"Miya...please--"  
  
The ring of the phone cut Joe off. "That's probably Jun," Miya said, crossing to the bedside table to pick up. "Cygnus Lodge." She listened for a moment, a puzzled expression crossing her face. "Uhm...Chief Kamo? Yes, he's here." She held the handset out to Joe. "He...wants to speak to you. He says it's...business."  
  
Joe's olive face drained of color. He took the phone from Miya's hand, and she sat down hard on the edge of the bed as he spoke into the handset. "Chief? What's happened?"  
  
"Something terrible, Joe...and something more terrible may well be coming. I need to assemble the team here at G-Mountain. Can you get in touch with Ken and Jun?"  
  
"Chief, they'll be home in a day or two...is it necessary to--"  
  
"Very necessary. I'm sorry, but this is a serious matter. I need all of you here as soon as possible."  
  
Joe paused a moment, looking at Miya, who met his eyes questioningly. He forced his next question out through lips that had suddenly gone stiff and numb. "Are you reactivating the team?"  
  
"It may well come to that. Please, just get here as soon as you can."  
  
"Roger." Joe hung up the phone and looked down at Miya. "I have to call Ken. We have to go to G-Mountain."  
  
"No." Miya gripped Joe's hands with both of hers. "No, it can't be happening again. It's finished. It's over. Please..."  
  
"Miya." Joe knelt in front of her and met her shimmering eyes. "Don't fall apart on me now. We have to be ready for anything."  
  
She closed her eyes tight. "It's true..." Her voice was a cracked whisper. "What you were telling me...it's all true."  
  
"_Cara._" He kissed her forehead, then got up to dial Ken's rented beach house in Halai. Miya lay down on the bed, clutching Joe's pillow to her stomach and curling up around it.  
  


* * *

  


The ringing of the phone woke Jun, who heard Ken answer and elected to drift back off to sleep. Something about the tone of his voice as he spoke--low and urgent--kept her from achieving more than a light doze. When she heard him hang up, she opened her eyes and looked up at him.  
  
He sat at the edge of the bed, his back to her. As she watched, she heard him sigh deeply, and he put his head in his hands.  
  
Her stomach gave an odd clutch. She sat up and put a hand on her husband's back. "Ken...? What is it?"  
  
He looked over his shoulder at her. Even in profile, his expression looked bleak. "We have to go back."  
  
"What's wrong? Has something happened at the lodge?"  
  
"No, Jun. We have to go _back_."  
  
The implication of his words sank in. "You mean..."  
  
Somberly he nodded. "Kamo is recalling the team. I don't know what's happened, but..."  
  
Jun closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against Ken's bare shoulder.  
  


* * *

  


"I'm going with you."  
  
"You're staying here."  
  
"No."  
  
Joe bit back a growl and turned on the redhead who was following him towards the door. "Miya, I want you to be where you'll be safe."  
  
"If it's as serious as you think it is, then nowhere's going to be safe." Miya stuck her chin out defiantly. "If the world's going to end, I'd rather be with the people I love. I don't want to be alone."  
  
Joe opened his mouth to protest further...but he couldn't find a counter-argument for that logic. With a shake of his head he reached out and took her arm. "C'mon, short stuff," he said to Jinpei, who was lingering in the open doorway. "Let's get on the road."  
  


* * *

  


Saburo Kamo was sitting at his desk. It was mid-afternoon before the entire team was assembled; Ken and Jun were the last to arrive, and they entered the office holding hands. Wordlessly Jun went to Jinpei and enfolded her foster brother in a hug. Miya sat tensely beside him on the couch, and Ken patted her shoulder in passing before he sat down. Ryu sat in a corner, his normally cheerful face bleak, and Joe--true to old habit--stood against one wall, his arms folded, scowling at nothing in particular and everything in general.  
  
_Just like old times,_ Ken mused. "Chief? What's happening?"  
  
Kamo sighed deeply and glanced over his notes. "I'm sorry to have to call you in on such short notice. If it were any less grave a matter...but unfortunately, it seems our worst fears may yet be realized."  
  
"Skip the preliminaries," Joe rumbled. "Now that we're all here, just tell us what's going on so we can stop it."  
  
"Joe!" Ken admonished.  
  
"No, he's right, Ken." Kamo's dark eyes met his grimly. "Over the past week there have been a series of bizarre and unexplained disappearances. The victims fit no specific profile, and invariably, they have been found hours after their disappearance...quite dead, I'm afraid."  
  
"Chief..." Jun cleared her throat. "Forgive me, but aren't there agencies to deal with that sort of thing? How does it involve the ISO? Or us?"  
  
"Let me explain." Kamo opened a folder and took out a handful of photographs, passing them to Ken. "These are crime scene photos from various police departments between here and the Midwest. You'll notice that each of the victims are emaciated, in a state of advanced dehydration...and each one appears to be a person of advanced age. However, according to identification found on the bodies, and subsequent DNA tests, none of those people were over the age of thirty-five--and one was a girl of fourteen."  
  
"Damn," Jinpei muttered.  
  
"Language," chided his sister.  
  
"Sorry."  
  
Joe's eyes were fixed on Kamo. "Go on...tell us the rest of it."  
  
The Chief stood, head bowed. "Early this morning, there was an act of severe vandalism in Utoland Cemetery. After the attack by Egobossler, Nambu's grave was carefully restored. This morning...it was broken into."  
  
Jun gasped aloud. Ken dropped the photos he'd been holding. Ryu sat forward, eyes wide. Jinpei's face went white, and Miya put a hand to her mouth. Joe's eyes narrowed dangerously.  
  
"Hakase's...remains..." Kamo shut his eyes tightly. "His body was...stolen. We don't know by whom. Whoever managed the theft left virtually no clues. Just an empty grave and an open coffin. It would have taken phenomenal strength to--"  
  
"Never mind that!" Ken was on his feet, eyes blazing. "There's got to be some way to track them down. Whatever sick reasons they had for this, we can't let them get away with it. It's inhuman!"  
  
"Yes," Kamo said, raising his eyes to meet Ken's again. "That's precisely what I'm afraid of."  
  
"You mean aliens?" Jinpei said. "Like X--I mean Z was?"  
  
"He means Z." All eyes turned to Joe. "Or what's left of him, anyway."  
  
"Joe..." Ken took a step towards him. "How could you know that?"  
  
Joe reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out Nambu's pendant. "I get my information from a very reliable source."  
  


* * *

  


"I don't like this." Arashi watched his lover scurry around the penthouse they shared, gathering and abandoning objects seemingly at random. Berke moved at a frantic pace, like a bipolar sufferer on a manic high.  
  
"It's the only way," Berke muttered, half to Arashi, half to himself. "It's the only place he won't think of looking for me. The only place I'll be safe from him." He stopped and looked at Arashi, and the desperation and panic was plain in the china-blue eyes. "You can stay here if you want, but I'm going."  
  
"Are you crazy? Of course I'm going with you. I just don't understand why you'd be safer in the middle of nowhere than you would be here with me."  
  
"There's a lot of things I've never explained to you, _leibling_." Berke passed a hand over his weary, feverish eyes. "I swear to you, I'll explain everything to you when we get there."  
  
Arashi sighed and nodded assent. "Where are we going again?"  
  
"You wouldn't have heard of it. It's in the Himalayas. Its name is--"  
  


* * *

  


"--_Cross Caracolm?!_" Ken scoffed. "Joe, you're crazy. Why would X--Z--whatever--go back there, of all places?"  
  
"I don't understand everything yet, but there's something there he wants. Something he needs to accomplish what he wants."  
  
"And that is...?" Jun asked.  
  
Joe fixed her with a look. "What he's wanted since the destruction of his homeworld Selectro. He wants Earth destroyed."  
  
"But _why?_" Ryu scratched his head. "If the planet goes boom, won't he go with it?"  
  
"No. According to what Hakase told me, the release of energy from the Earth's destruction will give him a massive influx of raw power. He'll be able to create his _own_ world--perhaps even his own vision of Selectro. Or perhaps he plans to restore the original Selectro. That didn't seem very clear."  
  
"Is that even possible?" Jun wondered.  
  
"That's not the issue. The point is that, whether Z can actually accomplish his ultimate goals or whether he's just an extradimensional crackpot, the Earth will be just as dead either way."  
  
"But _how_ can Z still be alive?" Jinpei's face was pinched and pale. "We _destroyed_ the satellite. It blew up around us. There was nothing left!"  
  
"Some of the debris fell to Earth," Joe explained. "Not all of it disintegrated on re-entry, either. Z rode in on one of the larger fragments, and he waited for someone to wander past...and jumped into their body."  
  
Jun shuddered.  
  
"He's like a parasite, or maybe a virus, jumping from person to person. None of his hosts last long, because he...uses them up. That's why the bodies he leaves behind look so dessicated. Even as he's inhabiting them, he's also absorbing his host's life energy, gaining power. By now he might well be able to jump to a mechanized form again--and that may well be what's waiting for him at Cross Caracolm."   
  
"But you're not sure," Ken reminded him.  
  
Joe tapped the pendant in his hand. "Hakase isn't sure."  
  
"Is Hakase really in there?" Jinpei leaned over the back of the couch. "Hey, Hakase! Can you hear us?"  
  
"We were never able to definitively scan or examine that object properly," Kamo said. "I knew only that I was supposed to give it to you, Ken, when all hope seemed lost. My only guess is that it's a sort of highly advanced recording device. It's possible that President Nambu made a recording of his brain-wave patterns and select knowledge using that pendant as a focus. Of course, that's only a theory, but it's the only one I can think of that makes logical sense."  
  
"Then how would he know about Z's return?" Joe countered.  
  
"Extrapolation. Perhaps it's capable of globally scanning for Z's energy signature. Again, I'm only speculating. In any case, it would seem, Joe, that whatever information you received from that pendant is reliable as far as we can determine."  
  
"There's only one way to find out." Ken turned around and looked at his team. His family. "We're going to have to go check it out for ourselves."  
  
Kamo nodded. "During the past ten months of downtime, I've commissioned the construction of new vehicles for you."  
  
"Another Spartan?" Ryu asked.  
  
"So long as it's not another 'chicken ship'," Jinpei muttered. "That thing was _ooglay_."  
  
"You'll find it waiting for you down in the hangar bay. The God Phoenix III."  
  
"Let's go," Ken said, heading for the door.  
  
Miya got up as Ken passed her, and he paused long enough to hug her before walking out with Jun close to his side. Miya took a step after them, but Joe stopped her. "Not this time, _cara_," he said. "Don't wait up." He kissed her soundly, then headed after the others.  
  
Kamo was on the phone almost immediately. "Prep the GP3 at once, and mobilize the ground and air troops for an approach to the central Himalayas. We need to provide backup for the Science Ninja...and, if God forbid they fail, we're going to have to try and stop Z ourselves, somehow."  
  
After he hung up, Miya caught his attention. "Sir...please, let me go with you. I know I can't fight with the Ninja, but...they're my family, too. I want to be near them...just in case?"  
  
Kamo saw the look of desperate hope and fear on her face, and nodded. "Of course. I completely understand."  
  


* * *

  


"Woo-hoo! Now _this_ is a _jet!_"  
  
Ryu's large hands moved over the controls of the sleek God Phoenix III with his usual surprising dexterity. The controls were remarkably like those of the original God Phoenix; the exterior lines of the ship recalled its original predecessor as well, but the lines were sleeker, more aerodynamic.  
  
"This isn't a joyride, Ryu." Stern and sober in his BirdStyle, Ken stood on the deck behind him, watching the forward screen. "Joe...can you tell us anything else?"  
  
"You know what I know now. There's something at Cross Caracolm that Z wants--that he needs--and we have to get to it before he does."  
  
"I don't get it..." Jinpei shook his head. "If the pendant was some kind of mental recording device that could affect sleeping brainwaves...why didn't _you_ get anything from Hakase, Ken-aniki?"  
  
Ken's shoulders stiffened.  
  
"He did," Joe answered for him. "He thought they were just dreams, and he ignored them." He smirked and leaned back in his chair, folding his arms. "Some things never change--Ken's still thick as a brick in the uptake department."  
  
Ken's glare was lost on the Sicilian.  
  


* * *

  


The passenger flight to Tibet had landed hours ago. Berke hired an all-terrain vehicle and had driven the mountain roads like mad--some of them could hardly be called "roads", barely clear spots on the mountainside--until finally he parked at the top of a hill and got out, taking off at a run.  
  
"Berke--wait!" Arashi ran after his lover, his breath puffing in the chill, thin air. It was near the end of June, yet here there was still snow on the ground.  
  
Berke scrambled down an almost sheer slope, heading for a tumble of ruins that might once have been set up in a definitive shape--like a flame, or an arrow--but were now a seemingly random assembly of stones in the shape of strange idols. Arashi feared that his lover might break a leg, or even his neck, in his haste, and followed more carefully.  
  
By the time Arashi reached level ground again, Berke was just disappearing into what looked like a hole in the ground. _Down the rabbit hole,_ Arashi thought, _and what did Alice find there?_  
  
The opening in the ground revealed a flight of weathered steps that led down into darkness. Arashi heard Berke's footfalls descending below, and with a resigned shrug, he went down after him.  
  
The stairs led to what had apparently been some kind of underground facility of some sort, possibly military in nature, from the look of things. Large rents in the ceiling allowed watery sunlight to filter in, casting a ghostly light on everything. Arashi moved cautiously, casting his eyes about for Berke.  
  
He found him in a long, vaguely cylindrical inner chamber. At the far end was what looked like a window of some sort--or it had been, at any rate, now shattered and broken. Berke was kneeling before it, arms wrapped around himself, trembling.  
  
Arashi knelt beside him, putting his arms around the thin shoulders. "_Anata...?_"  
  
"It was...it was here," Berke gasped in a shaky whisper, "it was here that I died."  
  
"What...?"  
  
"Berg Katse."  
  
"What? The first Galactor leader? But he's--"  
  
"Dead. Yes, I know." Berke giggled brokenly. "I was Berg Katse. Sosai was going to destroy the world instead of giving it to me like he promised. I threw myself into the lava pit...but I didn't die. _Couldn't_ die. I wanted to, but I couldn't. God, it hurt so much...the pain nearly drove me insane. No...I _was_ insane. By the time I had pulled myself up onto a ledge to finish healing, I'd been driven...sane."  
  
Arashi shook his head. "Berke, you're not making sense."  
  
"None of it made sense. I left here before the ISO troops arrived to finish cleaning up the mess left behind by the Ninja. I got to Switzerland, adopted one of the identities I had constructed--two of them really, since there are two of me..." Another crazy giggle. "I went to Ameris to start a new life, a secret life. I wanted nothing more to do with Sosai or Galactor or anything associated with them. And then I met you, and I had a new reason to live."  
  
"Berke..." Arashi held on tightly to his lover. Somehow he knew that every word was true. This was _Berg Katse_, the first leader of the terrorist organization known as the Galactor Syndicate, a man who'd murdered millions of innocent people with his terrifying war machines. Arashi grasped the implications completely, and it didn't matter a whit to him. This was the man he'd loved and nurtured for four years, and whatever he'd done in the past no longer mattered. By his own admission, Berg Katse had died for his sins. Berke Castille's hands were clean.  
  
"Berke...why do you believe you're safe _here_, of all places? I would think this was the last place you'd want to be."  
  
"I don't know, Arashi...I don't know, I just felt I..._needed_ to come here. I knew this was the one place he wouldn't think of looking for me. I...I thought I knew, but...now...now I'm not as sure. Oh, Arashi, I'm more frightened than ever..."  
  
"Then I'm getting you out of here. Right now." Arashi pulled Berke to his feet. "Whoever this "Sosai" of yours really is, there's got to be places safer from him than here."  
  
"Oh, there are, human...but you'll never reach them now."  
  
At the voice from the shadows beyond the shattered window, Berke moaned and went limp in Arashi's arms.  
  
A tall, wasted figure emerged jerkily from the broken portal. It didn't _walk_, exactly; it _floated_, its feet nearly a meter above the dusty, rubble-strewn floor. Its eyes glowed a hellish ember-red. "So, Berg Katse, you finally will serve a useful purpose to me. Because of your ability to heal yourself so rapidly, you alone can sustain my essence for a prolonged period of time. Unlike my other human hosts, you will not age and decay around me. You alone will last long enough for me to finish what I have set out to do."  
  
"No...no, Sosai, please..." The figure drifted into a shaft of light, and Berke screamed at the sight of it.  
  
Arashi steeled himself and gave Berke a vicious shove towards the exit. "Berke--_run!!_" he shouted as he threw himself at the approaching apparition.  
  
"_Arashiiiiii!_" Berke wailed, but his feet were already carrying him towards the stairs to the surface.  
  


* * *

  


"One thing's for sure," Ryu muttered, looking down on the ruins of Cross Caracolm. "This place hasn't changed much."  
  
"Okay, there's nobody here. Can we go now?"  
  
"Hush, Jinpei." Jun looked over at Joe, whose face was as still and unreadable as a sheer stone wall.   
  
Ken's eyes swept over the forbidding landscape. "Someone's been here, and recently. There are footprints in the snow down there."  
  
Jinpei swallowed hard. "D'you think maybe it was...?"  
  
"We're only going to know for sure if we go find out. Come on."  
  
Staying close together, the five of them swept down the snow-crusted hillside. Jinpei was shivering, and not just from the cold. "This is really creeping me out...if Z-whosis _is_ around here, what if he decides one of _us_ looks like a good somebody to jump into?"  
  
"Our helmets should prevent that," Ken assured him. "They're shielded, remember."  
  
As they crossed the uneven ground at the foot of the hill, Joe suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. He raised his head, listening intently.  
  
Jun paused and looked back at him. "Joe...?"  
  
"Hush. I thought I heard--" He turned towards the center of the stone-littered clearing and saw a figure emerge from a ragged hole in the ground. As they watched, tense and ready, the person stumbled and sprawled, then got to their feet and continued on, fleeing as though all the demons of hell were snapping at their heels.  
  
Ken moved to intercept the fugitive, catching the thin arms in his hands. "Who are you? What are you doing here?"  
  
"Ken, be careful!" Jun warned. "That could be--"  
  
"Let me _go!_" the man Ken was restraining sobbed, and all the Ninja froze. "Please, just let me go--I don't want to--"  
  
Ken shook the man, and the blond hair flew back from his face. A face that was unmistakable.  
  
"Berg...Katse?!" Ken gasped.  
  
The china-blue eyes looked at him, wide with terror. "Ga-Gatchaman! It's horrible--it's down there--"  
  
Ken threw the mutant to the snow and pulled out his Birdrang, glaring furiously. "You're supposed to be _dead_. How can _you_ be here, after all this time?"  
  
Katse shook his head furiously, on his hands and knees. "It doesn't matter--we've got to leave this place, before--" A scream from below made him jerk his head up. "Arashi?! _No!_"  
  
Movement from behind Katse attracted Ken's attention. A body--another man, one with long black hair--was hurled up out of the opening and landed in a broken heap upon the ground. Whimpering, Katse scrabbled over to him and took the unconscious man in his arms. "Oh, God...Arashi, forgive me..."  
  
Ken's look of confusion was almost comical. He was staring at Katse as though expecting him to vanish into thin air at any moment. He was distracted by Jun's sudden, piercing scream. A heartbeat later, he could hear Joe's voice, rough with shock: "Holy Mother of God..."  
  
Ken tore his eyes from Katse and looked towards the underground entrance. What he saw almost made his heart stop dead.  
  
The floating corpse pivoted to face him, and grinned at him with Kozaburo Nambu's dead, almost mummified face. The suit Nambu had been buried in hung off the wasted body in rags. The eyes, glowing like coals, seemed to burn into Ken's shock-frozen brain. Then the nightmare's jaw moved as it spoke in an echo of Z's voice.  
  
"What a pleasant surprise, Gatchaman."   
  


  
* * *   
  
Return to the Fanfiction Archive  
  



	4. Rip Us Into Pieces

LITTLE EARTHQUAKES

_Emby Quinn (embyquinn@subreality.com)_

  


Chapter 4: Rip Us Into Pieces  


  
_These little earthquakes  
Here we go again  
These little earthquakes  
Doesn't take much to rip us into pieces  
_  


* * *

  


"Get the ground troops into position," Kamo barked over the intercom. "If the Science Ninja Team should fail, we're not to allow anything that moves to come down off that mountain. If we have to reduce it to a pile of rubble, we need to stop Z at all costs."  
  
The ISO and UN forces were assembled at the foot of the mountain. The last flyover had confirmed that the GP3 had landed safely, but there had been no word from the team at all. _I should have given them new activators,_ Kamo mused. _Even if they don't need them to transform, they should have some way of calling for help._  
  
"Miyae, all we can do now is wai--" He turned, but the young woman who had been at his shoulder since they'd left G-Mountain was nowhere in sight. "Miyae? Where are you?"  
  
His eyes scanned the immediate area for a flash of long red hair. Nothing. Before they left G-Mountain, she'd changed into a form-fitting black insuit, the same coverall that many of the troops wore, at Kamo's own suggestion--to protect her against the cold--  
  
"Oh, no." Kamo's eyes turned towards the mountain. "Did she...?" He got on the radio again. "All units, alert. Find Miyae Washio and stop her--don't let her get up that mountain! Restrain her and bring her back to me at once!"  
  
Kamo's orders came too late. By the time his men discovered that one of their ground vehicles had gone missing, said vehicle was already near the top of the mountain, its driver guided half by overheard directional data and half by pure blind instinct to the place once known as Cross Caracolm.  
  


* * *

  
"You bastard." Joe was shaking with sick rage.   
  
"Ahh, Condor Joe. So we meet again--for the last time, I fear. Forgive me for borrowing your mentor's body...but I was using up the living hosts far too quickly. Fortunately I gathered enough power to be able to subsist in a non-living form for a period of time...and I thought using Nambu's corpse would be a fitting touch of irony."  
  
He turned to face the shivering man on the ground, who was trying to shield his wounded lover. "Poor Berg Katse. I was the one who sent you those nightmares. I wasn't 'looking' for you, you see--I knew where you were the entire time, but I wasn't quite strong enough to come and claim you. It would be too easy to lose you in a populated area, so it seemed logical to lure you to a place where no one else would interfere. And since you were very familiar with Cross Caracolm, I planted a suggestion that you would be safe from me here."  
  
Katse moaned.  
  
Joe reached for his gun. At the same time, Jun pulled her yo-yo. Ken had his Birdrang ready. "Z..." he snarled.  
  
"That name seems rather pointless, don't you think? Since I'm here to bring about the end of your world, I think it would be more appropriate to call me...Omega." He raised Nambu's hand, and the Science Ninja froze in their tracks. "I've gathered enough energy to affect the physical world at short range now. I'm afraid that none of you can move. I'm sure it must be a very unpleasant sensation. Don't worry; once I've claimed Katse's body, I'll make an end of you all. Perhaps I'll make you kill each other; that would be an amusing and ironic conclusion to our little game, don't you thi--"  
  
A black-clad figure leapt from one of the few stone statues still standing and slammed into Z--Omega--knocking him to the ground. Ken felt the invisible hands release his body, and he took a step forward. He saw a flash of red hair, and his stomach knotted. 'Miyae--!"  
  
Joe finished drawing his gun and aimed it at Omega. If he could get a clear shot, blow the top of Omega's--Nambu's--head off, perhaps that would render the body useless to him. Hopefully, prayerfully, it wouldn't be able to jump into Katse from several meters away. Nambu had said that he would die without a host. If only he could get a clear line of fire...  
  
If Miya was horrified by Omega's appearance, she didn't let it show. She hit him hard and fast, landing half a dozen killing strokes in the space of as many seconds. But--  
  
"You can't kill what's already dead, human." Omega grasped Miya by the throat and rose up into the air with her. She grabbed the wasted arm with both hands, trying to wrench it away, but she couldn't fight her way free. She started choking, her feet dangling off the ground.  
  
Omega's back was to them. Joe took aim and his finger tightened on the trigger of his cable gun.  
  
Omega looked over his shoulder, and they all froze in place again. _"Kuso!"_ Joe cursed, fighting to move his finger, straining with every ounce of will to pull the trigger, teeth bared in a rictus of fury and hate. He had a sick flash of memory--himself at eight years old, standing on a beach, his dead father's gun in his hand, aiming it at the woman who'd murdered his parents. Fighting to pull the trigger and not strong enough to manage it. Snarling with rage, he focused all his attention on making his finger move. That was all he had to do. Just a twitch, one small movement, and the nightmare would finally--prayerfully--end.  
  
"Let her go, damn you!" Ken shouted. Miya's struggles were gradually weakening as she hung in Omega's grip, unable to breathe.  
  
"But of course, Gatchaman. You only had to ask." Omega tossed Miya towards them--  
  
Into Joe's line of fire.  
  
As he released his psychic hold on the Condor.  
  
"_NO!_" Joe screamed as his gun went off. The bullet tore through Miya's back and out through the center of her chest. She fell to the snowy ground with a sickening thud, a pool of blood spreading under her.  
  
"Miya..." Joe dropped to his knees beside her. His gun fell, forgotten, from his limp fingers. "Miya...oh, God, Christ...I'm sorry...please, forgive me..."  
  
Her eyes were wide, astonished. Her mouth moved around his name, but no sound came. Her hand fluttered up to touch his face, then fell. Her whole body gave one shuddering spasm before she went limp and the light winked out of her blue eyes.  
  
Joe's cry of loss was indescribable.  
  
Omega's laughter rang across the landscape. "Yes, I think I _will_ have you kill each other--I think it will be amusing to watch. But first..." He pivoted to face Katse, who was rocking Arashi back and forth, crooning softly. "I think it's time you finally served a useful purpose, Berg Katse."  
  
Joe had fallen silent. He knelt beside Miya's dead body, staring not at her--he couldn't look at her--but at his hands, the hands that had killed her. In a few seconds he would break into a towering, suicidal rage, but for the moment he was almost catatonic.  
  
Ken felt himself ensheathed in a deep, abiding anger. This was too much. This was the final insult, the last straw. What should have been finished up in space would be finished here, now, today. The creature now calling itself Omega was going to wish it had died up on that satellite, when--  
  
What had happened up on that satellite?  
  
Ken found, without surprise, that he understood now. Perhaps he always had, but had been unwilling to acknowledge it. It was so fantastic, impossible to believe...but it was the simple truth.  
  
With a new will he pushed Omega's restraint aside. He might not have been able to do it on his own...but he wasn't on his own anymore. He hadn't been for nearly a year now, and he never would be again.  
  
He walked over and picked his sister's body up off the blood-stained ground. Joe didn't move, didn't look up at him. It didn't matter; he would understand as well, when the time came.   
  
Ken turned around. Omega was hovering just over Katse, reaching out for him. Katse was cringing back, looking up with hopeless terror.  
  
"Omega." Ken's voice rang out clear across the snowy field. "You've claimed your last victim. It ends here. Now."  
  
Omega looked around. "So, you slipped my control, Gatchaman? It doesn't matter. You can't kill me. Don't you even know that by now? I have no physical form. Even if you destroy this body, I'll simply slip into a new one. I can never be destroyed."  
  
"You're wrong." Ken stepped forward, cradling his dead sister close to his chest. "Even if you have no physical form, you're still a living thing. The Phoenix is the embodiment of life, and just as it can grant life, it can also take it away from the undeserving.  
  
"_And I--we--are the Phoenix._"  
  
"Ken!" Jun gasped as the Eagle suddenly burst into flame.  
  
_*Jun._*  
  
She blinked. That had been Ken's voice, but it was inside her head. "Ken...?"  
  
_*Jun. Come to me now. Together we are stronger than Omega. Remember the satellite?*_  
  
"I don't--I..." Ken was lost to sight now among the rising pillar of flame. "I...oh. We were..."  
  
_*We were dead, Jun. We were all dead...and we brought ourselves back to life. We became the Phoenix. The Hinotori. Five became one, and in every real sense, we have been one ever since. Five bodies, one soul.*_  
  
"...Ken..." Tears filled her eyes. "Oh, Ken."  
  
_*Only as one can we defeat Omega now. It won't be enough to destroy his stolen body. We have to obliterate his essence. He has forfeited his right to exist.*_  
  
"I...I understand." Jun reached out and took Jinpei's hand. "Let's go, little brother."  
  
"Onee-chan...?" Jinpei walked with her towards the pyre. He looked at it with curiosity, but no fear. "I heard Ken--inside my head..."  
  
"I know. Hush, now. It's going to be all right."  
  
Ryu found he could move as well, and he followed Jun and Jinpei into the blaze.  
  
"_What are you doing?!_" Omega struggled to re-establish his hold on the Ninja, but something was wrong. Something was _different_. He couldn't get a mental purchase on them. "Stop it! Stop it now!"  
  
_*Joe.*_ Not one voice now, but four that spoke as one, calling to him. With eyes gone cold and dead he looked up at the flames. He got to his feet, not even aware of Omega's frantic attempts to restrain him. He walked forward and vanished into the fire--  
  


* * *

  
"Sir? Chief Kamo? Something's happening up there."  
  
Kamo tore his thoughts away from Ken's missing sister and looked up towards the top of the mountain. A dull red glow suffused the peak, and his throat tightened. "Get the missiles ready. Fire on my--"  
  
A sound rent the dark sky, a wild, sweet call of triumph and joy. The glow exploded into a gout of fire, and the fire took the form of a crested bird, spreading its wings above the mountaintop.  
  
"The _Hinotori..._?" Kamo raised the radio mic again. "Hold fire. I repeat, hold fire!"  
  


* * *

  
"You can't destroy me!" Omega raged as the flames engulfed him. "You can turn this body to ash, but I will still exist! I'll find you! I'll destroy you all!"  
  
_*No. You will NOT.* _A chorus of five voices speaking perfectly in time, blending into a single voice. _*You exist only to cause pain, and death, and destruction. You have learned nothing from your past. You have forfeited your right to existence. You will be made Not.*_  
  
Omega felt himself torn from the body of Nambu. Naked, discorporate and helpless, a psychic force more powerful than he could have imagined was tearing away at him, ripping him to pieces. He fought to hold himself whole, fought with every ounce of his fierce, insane will, but it wasn't enough. The opposing force was disintegrating him. Deconstructing him. Making him Not.  
  
Omega couldn't even scream as his consciousness was shredded into nothingness and scattered, winking out on the wind like sparks from a dying fire.  
  
And the alien from Selectro, the creator of Galactor who had terrorized Earth for a generation, was made Not.  
  


* * *

  


Berg Katse cradled Arashi in his arms, his eyes shut tight against the blinding, furious light of the Hinotori. _This is the end,_ he thought, _this is the end, and perhaps it is just as well._  
  
The light and rush of cleansing heat faded. Katse, somewhat surprised to find himself alive, forced his eyes open. Arashi moaned softly in his arms, and Katse kissed his brow, then dared a look around.  
  
The entire area was swept clean of snow, foliage and debris. Only an irregular patch of grass remained in a two-meter circle around him and Arashi. The Science Ninja lay on the ground some distance away; as Katse watched, Gatchaman stirred and sat up.  
  
Ken opened his eyes. He found himself smiling, somewhat sadly, and wasn't surprised. He moved to Jun's side and helped her sit up, his arm around her slim shoulders. "Jun?"  
  
"I'm all right." She wrapped her arms around him and held him tight. "It's over, isn't it? Finally?"  
  
"Omega's gone. We got him, _koibito._"  
  
"Thank God."  
  
"Yes." Ken heaved a sigh. "I just wish the price hadn't been so high."  
  
"Miya...?"  
  
"Aa." He glanced around to check on the others. Jinpei and Ryu were just waking up. Joe was on his knees, sitting on his heels, hands dangling loosely, head down, not moving.   
  
Lying between him and Joe on the scoured ground was the white, naked body of a woman. A woman with long red hair.  
  
"_Nani...?_" Ken had expected Miyae's body to be consumed in the fire of the _Hinotori_. He couldn't understand why she hadn't been. And why was she _naked?_  
  
As the thought occurred to him, Joe looked up and saw Miya's body. His eyes snapped wide, and he scrambled over to her. As he gathered her into his arms, he turned her over, and Ken saw what Joe had already noticed.  
  
The gaping hole in Miyae's chest was gone. The white flesh was smooth and unmarked.  
  
"My God..." Ken whispered. Jun looked around, and gasped.  
  
Joe reached up and ripped off his helmet, tossing it to one side. He put his ear to her chest. "Her heart...it's...she's breathing. She..."  
  
"She's alive," Jun finished for him.  
  
"But...but how...?" Ken wondered.  
  
Jun looked at him. "You said it yourself, Ken. The Phoenix can grant life. Remember? We brought ourselves back, after the destruction of Z's sattelite...and now we've brought Miya back, too."  
  
"_Cara mia..._" Joe held her close, staring intently into her face. "_Aprami i vostri occhi per me. Accesi, potete farli. Svegli, tesoro._" He swallowed hard. "Come on, Miya. Wake up. I know you can hear me. _ Ritornato a me. Per favore..._"  
  
For a moment, nothing. Then, as Ken watched, Miya took a sharp breath and opened her eyes. "Ji...Joe...?"  
  
With a choked sound that was almost a sob, Joe buried his face in her shoulder, almost crushing her against him.  
  
"Sis..." Ken got to his feet and took a step forward, wonder and joy spreading across his face.  
  
A cry from Katse stopped him in his tracks. "Gatchaman--_abunai yo!_"  
  
Ken looked around--and his soul froze.  
  
Nambu's body was still there. And it was starting to move.  
  
"NO!" Ken reached for Joe's abandoned gun and took frantic aim. _No, by God, you bastard, you can't come _back_, you can't just keep coming _back_, I won't _let_ you--_  
  
"Ken!" Nambu's body held up a hand. The eyes were no longer red, but the familiar dark brown. The body no longer looked wasted, but hale, healthy, whole.  
  
It was also quite naked.  
  
"Ken." It was Nambu's voice. "It's all right. It's me."  
  
Ken couldn't move. It was as though Omega had him in its psychic grip again, only this time he wasn't being impeded by an external force. "Hakase..."  
  
He sounded eight years old again.  
  
Jun gently pried the gun out of Ken's hand. "It's all right, Ken. It's all right. It's Hakase. It really is." She knew it to be so, and didn't wonder for a moment how she knew.  
  
Nambu sat up with a weary sigh. "When you--that it to say, when the _Hinotori_ drove Omega from my body, my spirit apparently reclaimed it. The same force that healed Miyae and resurrected her obviously did the same to me." He looked down at himself and chuckled. "I don't suppose anyone has a spare robe...?"  
  
Jun set Joe's gun on the ground beside him. Then she reached up around Ken's shoulders and unhooked his winged cape from the cowl around his neck. She moved forward and draped the cape over Nambu's shoulders, and he smiled in gratitude. Behind them, Joe had already done the same to Miya, and he was standing up with her still in his arms.  
  
"I tried," Miya gasped, her voice trembling. "I tried so hard, I tried to hang on, I fought with all my strength and I couldn't stop it. I felt the life slipping away from me like sand--Joe, I _died_..."  
  
Blue-gloved fingers stilled her lips. "_Calmo, calmo._ Hush now." Joe's eyes glimmered behind his dark blond bangs. "Don't talk about it. Not another word. You're alive, you're here with me, and that's what matters." He held her close against him and wouldn't let her say anything more. He guided her across the blasted ground to where Ken and Jun were helping Nambu to his feet.  
  
The older man smiled gently at Joe as he approached. "It's good to see you again, Joe. In the flesh, one might say."  
  
"Same goes back." Joe's voice was still shaky, but he tried to summon a shadow of his habitual smirk and almost succeeded. "Next time send a telegram or something."  
  
Ken turned and reached out to gather his sister into his arms. He kissed the top of her head, and she hugged him tight in return without saying anything. When Joe pulled her back against him, Ken didn't resist. Their eyes met, and the two men nodded in mutual understanding.  
  
"Whoa, this is all _way_ too weird." Jinpei and Ryu joined the group. "I don't think I can handle much more strange this week--it's like something out of the X-Files."  
  
"Oh, I dunno. Makes perfect sense to me." Ryu knocked playfully on the side of Jinpei's helmet. "Sometimes five, sometimes one...that's the way we've always been."  
  
Jun looked down at the two men still on the ground. "We have to get Katse's...friend to a hospital," she said.  
  
"Yeah, and what are we gonna do with Katse, anyway?" Jinpei wondered. "I mean, you know, he's--well, he's Katse, for crying out loud."  
  
The roar of an engine interrupted any response Ken might have made. An ATV roared down the hillside, and Kamo jumped clear before it had even come to a full stop. "Ken--Gatchaman--everyone--what's happening? We saw the Firebird, and--" He almost fell on his knees when he saw who was standing beside Ken. "P-President Nambu...?!"  
  
Nambu rubbed his forehead with a weary half-chuckle. "This," he said, "is going to be a very interesting and drawn-out story. I think I'm going to need a cigarette first."  
  


* * *

  
It was days like these that made Shuko Kamimura seriously consider tendering her resignation and looking for a job that was safer, saner, more stable. A front-line combat medic, maybe.  
  
First she was presented with a man who had apparently either been hit by a truck or been pushed off a five-story building. He wasn't even ISO, but she was directed to do what she could for him. Saving lives was her sworn duty, after all, so she did her damndest, and of a wonder, it looked like he would make a more or less full recovery from his injuries.  
  
No sooner had she gotten out of surgery and made this pronouncement than she was presented with someone wearing a standard-issue ISO coverall and told by Chief Kamo to do everything in her power to determine whether or not this individual was, in fact, Kozaburo Nambu.  
  
"But Nambu's dead," she'd objected.  
  
"I got better," the man said with a bemused grin.  
  
Three hours of DNA tests, retinal scans, fingerprint analysis and collecting of physical data confirmed the impossible. Kozaburo Nambu, dead one year ago of a gunshot wound to the heart, was incontrovertibly alive and well and in perfect health. There wasn't a mark on his body, not even old identifying scars from his years as a field agent. But the genetic analysis and ID scans were proof positive.  
  
After five hours of surgery and three hours of testing, Shuko was exhausted, but Kamo wasn't through with her yet. She had to go through the motions of examining a perfectly healthy woman in her mid-twenties, to make sure she wasn't suffering any "ill effects" from some unmentioned trauma she'd recently endured. Condor Joe--a man who secretly terrified Shuko--stood and watched her as she performed the exam, his piercing eyes missing nothing. She hated his presence, but she was too scared to ask him to leave.  
  
"You're fine," she told the redhead at the end of the examination. "I only wish I was as healthy as you are--or as young and thin, for that matter. There's nothing wrong with you." _Except your choice of boyfriends,_ she added silently.  
  
She turned to ask Condor Joe if he expected her to examine _him_ next--he'd never forgiven her for discovering the fact that his cybers were gone--and she gasped when he took hold of her arms and planted a kiss on her mouth.  
  
"Consider that an apology," he told the stunned doctor. "I was a right bastard to you the first time we met and I never got a chance to tell you that you were one hundred percent right." He let her go and draped an arm over the redhead's shoulders. "Come on, _cara_," he grinned. "Let's go tell your brother everything's okay."  
  
Shuko didn't move, didn't even blink, until she was alone in her office. Then she asked the empty examination room, "What the _hell_ just happened?!"  
  


* * *

  


"All right." Kamo rubbed his hands over his face. "Here's what we're going to tell the press. President Nambu--"  
  
"_Doctor_ Nambu, please," the man in question corrected gently. "I'm perfectly happy letting Sam fill the president's chair from now on."  
  
"Very well then. _Doctor_ Nambu faked his death and went into hiding for a year for his own protection because we at the ISO were convinced that Z was still a threat, and we were working to draw him out of hiding so we could finish him once and for all. Which we did. Now that Z is finished, Dr. Nambu is able to return to the public eye."  
  
"Thanks, but no thanks." Nambu adjusted his new glasses, then scowled and took them off. "I don't need them anymore," he explained at Ken's curious glance. "In any case, I'm looking forward to a quiet life of scientific research."  
  
"So it really is over," Jun said. "This time for good?"  
  
"Z, or rather Omega, is finished," Nambu affirmed. "Other threats may rise in the future, but I have no doubt that you will be the equal of them."  
  
"Hakase..." Ken bit his lip, somewhat uncertain. "The pendant you left to me...what _was_ it, exactly?"  
  
"To be honest, Ken, even I don't know. It was given to me along with the BirdStyle technology--"  
  
"Given to you?" Jun interrupted. "But you _invented_ BirdStyle, Hakase."  
  
"No. It was given to me by a member of Omega's own race. That entity later perished when Selectro was destroyed. All I know about the pendant was that it somehow collected my consciousness when I was killed...and it enabled the five of you to form the _Hinotori_ when all hope seemed lost. You became--you _are_--a collective consciousness, each retaining your own identity, yet able to form a gestalt more powerful than the five of you could ever be separately."  
  
"This is _way_ too deep for me," Jinpei muttered. "All I care about is that you're back, Hakase, and everybody's okay."  
  
Nambu chuckled and ruffled Jinpei's hair. "I suppose that's all that really matters, at that."  
  


* * *

  


Berg Katse looked up as Kozaburo Nambu quietly entered the hospital room, shutting the door behind him. Arashi lay on the bed, awake but still groggy from the painkillers. His green eyes flickered from the newcomer to the man sitting at his bedside, holding his hand.  
  
"Doctor," Katse said, nodding once to him.  
  
"It's been quite a while, Katse. You're looking surprisingly well for a dead man."  
  
"The same could be said for you."  
  
"Aa." He looked at Arashi. "I hear you're going to make a full recovery. I'm glad."  
  
Arashi smiled slightly. "And you came in here just to express get-well wishes? I feel so honored."  
  
"You know, Mr. Shinya, I've done a bit of investigation into _your_ background. It seems that Interpol has been making certain investigations into your activities...in connection with a jewel thief known only as the 'Black Flame'. They suspect that you might be using your appraisal business as a cover for illegal activities."  
  
The green eyes glittered. "I seriously doubt they can find any solid proof connecting me to any crimes of this so-called 'Black Flame', Doctor."  
  
"Yes, you cover your tracks very well. Inevitably, however, you're going to make a wrong move. They're closing in on you, Shinya. It's only a matter of time."  
  
Nambu looked at Katse. "And then there's the question of your companion's history."  
  
Arashi's hand tightened on Katse's.  
  
"Berg Katse was the leader of a global terrorist organization responsible for the deaths of millions," Nambu intoned starkly. "He's wanted for a list of war crimes too numerous to even begin to detail. Once it's discovered that he's alive, he'll be brought before a multinational tribunal and most likely sentenced to death."  
  
Katse shut his eyes and went pale. Arashi struggled to sit up. "I won't let that happen," he growled.  
  
"There's very little you can do about it, Mr. Shinya. In fact, you could well be implicated yourself for harboring a fugitive from justice."  
  
"He didn't know," Katse protested. "Until we went to Cross Caracolm, I swear he knew nothing about who I really was."  
  
Nambu nodded. "I believe you."  
  
Katse sighed. "What do you want, Nambu? If you wanted me in prison, I'd already be there. You would have told the officials that you had the dreaded Berg Katse in custody and they'd be lining up at the door to be the first to parade me before the courts and the revenge-crazed masses. The fact that you've done no such thing shows that you're willing to make a deal of some sort. What do you want from me?"  
  
"Nothing." Nambu sat in a chair at the foot of Arashi's hospital bed. "Galactor is finished, the alien who founded that organization is no more, and as far as I'm concerned, Berg Katse is dead. He died at Cross Caracolm all those years ago, perishing in a pool of lava. What crawled up out of that hell-pit was a different person. The fact that you've spent all this time completely disassociated from Galactor and the power you once craved proves that much."  
  
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Sadly, I'm not the final authority on punishment or absolution. The best I can do for you is a life sentence. No chance of parole. In complete isolation, save for a single caretaker. A trustee, if you would--a fellow prisoner to keep you company."  
  
Katse shook his head, confused. But Arashi's eyes gleamed with the beginning of understanding.  
  
"A private island," he said. "Lush, beautiful, far from civilization, in a beautiful house, surrounded by fine objects...with a single, special someone." He looked at Katse. "That's always been my dream, Berke--Katse. You know that."  
  
Katse looked with wide-eyed wonder at Nambu, who was nodding assent. "I believe that can be arranged with little if any trouble. A supply ship will visit on a regular basis to make sure your essential needs are taken care of. Otherwise, you will not be allowed to leave the island, ever, unless it should for some reason become uninhabitable--in which case alternative accommodations would be made."  
  
"I think that would suit us just fine," Arashi husked, bringing Katse's hand to his lips for a kiss. "Don't you think so, Katse?"  
  
The blond man could only look at Nambu with disbelieving wonder.  
  


* * *

  
"I hope I _never_ have to answer another reporter's question," Ken muttered as he entered the "green" room and flashed out of BirdStyle.   
  
Jun giggled and hugged his arm. "Time to go back to being plain old boring Mr. and Mrs. Washio."  
  
Ken grinned at her. "And nothing will suit me better."  
  
Miya stood up to greet them. "So you survived the screaming mob of newshounds intact?"  
  
"More or less." Ken pulled his sister into a hug and kissed her forehead. "You're lucky you don't have to do public appearances. It's a bitch and a half."  
  
She chuckled. "Hey, I'm just a supporting player, remember? My name isn't even in the credits."  
  
Ken snorted and tousled her hair before letting her go.  
  
"So we can go back home now?" Jinpei asked, flopping down in a chair.  
  
"Yeah, back to the straight world." Ryu rubbed his hands together. "I can't wait to tell the girls the good news."  
  
"Business as usual," Miya murmured, smiling at Joe as he approached her. "So, are we ready to head out?"  
  
"Not quite," he said, taking her hands and pulling her around to face him. "There's one thing we have left to do before we scatter to the four winds again."  
  
"And that would be...?"  
  
Joe took her in his arms and whispered in her ear. Miya's eyes went wide and she drew back to look at him. "Oh, you are _so_ not serious."  
  
"I've never been more serious in my life." Joe was half-smiling, but there was no glint of amusement in his gray eyes.  
  
"Joe, we've had this discussion before--"  
  
"What?" Jinpei sat up. "What're you talking about?"  
  
Joe didn't respond to him. He was still looking at Miya. "Part of me was always afraid to tempt fate--that if we took that step, something bad was going to happen. So I balked...and something bad _did_ happen. My stalling didn't stop it. I'm through living in fear, _cara_, and I don't want to risk losing you again. I want you bound to me by every law of God and man, and I want it as soon as we can manage it."  
  
"Joe?" Ken frowned, puzzled. "What are you talking ab--_itai!_ Jun, what was that for?!"  
  
Jun drew back her elbow. "Ken, sometimes you can be so dense."  
  
"Like I said before--thick as a brick." Joe smirked. "I'm going to marry your sister, Ken, if you have no objections."  
  
"You _what?!_"  
  
"If _he_ has no objections? What about me?" Miya said.  
  
Joe raised an eyebrow. "Do _you_ object?"  
  
"_Baka-jan_! Of course I don't--I mean--I didn't--I--" For once in her life, Miya was left speechless.   
  
"Good. Then it's settled." He pulled her against him for a kiss.  
  
  


* * *

  
  


THE END  
  
  
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	5. Author's Notes spoilerific

LITTLE EARTHQUAKES

_Emby Quinn (embyquinn@subreality.com)_

  


Author's Notes  
Wherein questions are answered,  
answers are questioned,  
and credit is given where credit is due.  


  
  
• The song "Little Earthquakes" is the title track of Tori Amos' first solo album. All of my Gatchaman fics get their titles from her songs.   
  
• Miyae Washio has been my personal character of choice since 1979, when I discovered Gatchaman. Yes, this makes her roughly as old as the Gatchaman F series.   
  
• I wrote my first Gatch fic in 1980. Thankfully, it has long since vanished. The stories you have read here are very different, and I would hope, vastly improved. (But Miyae has always been Ken's big sister. Some things never change.)   
  
• Shinya Arashi is the RP character of my housemate and is used with permission.   
  
• KayeKytte, aka Nikki Raven, my very best friend in the whole wide world, helped me with the plotting of this story and contributed a lot of Joe's best lines and actions. She also beta-read the story for me to make sure it didn't totally suck.   
  
• A lot of people are going to protest that, after a year in the ground, Nambu's corpse would have decayed to a skeleton. This is not true. Because of modern embalming techniques, interred bodies are often preserved for a very long time in a more or less intact state. Besides, this is anime (or based on anime anyway). I have an artistic license if you need to see it.   
  
• I stole a lot of lines from my favorite books and movies and sprinkled them throughout my various fanfics.   
  
• All the people who died in this story are modeled after people who pissed me off. No, I'm not naming names, but those who know me well can probably make a guess at one or two of them.   
  
• Shuko Kamimura, not to put too fine a point on it, is me. (One of my nicknames is "Shuko", which means "little pearl"--the translation of my birth given name, Maggie.)   
  
• The God Phoenix III (or GP3 for short) is modeled after the God Phoenix from the 1994 OAV series. It's the one thing I really, really liked about the remake. (Well, that and Joe's shower scene. Yummers.)   
  
• "Little Earthquakes" is the last Gatch fic I ever plan to write, chronologically speaking. However, there are other stories that fill in some of the gaps that I may yet write.   
  
• No llamas were harmed in the making of this fanfic.   
  
Emby Quinn 

  
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